Moving Forward
by Melitza
Summary: Shirayuki had seethed for decades over Rukia’s intractable guilt, and yet now, gutted and dying in Huecho Mundo for her hesitance to strike against one who wore Kaien’s face.. wielded his sword, flaunted his stance, quirked his lips.. the sword was silent
1. To Move Forward

_Bleach is Kubo's._

_In which Rukia makes a choice. Set in the Arrancar arc. Spoilers abound!_

--

--

--

--

--

--

It would have been nice to know whether it was a day or night on which she died. Or, for that matter, what the day of the week was, not that she could mark it and commemorate the anniversary in time to come, but _knowing_ at least would afford some meager sense of closure. Sadly, Huecho Mundo was a dust bowl devoid of even the lesser celebrated miracles in life, like a rising or setting sun by which to count the minutes.

Or hours.

Or days.

When he had thrust the trident through her stomach, she had offhandedly wondered what _not-life_ would be like, if indeed there was something waiting for death when she died. Would it be a blank devoid of nothingness, or would Hisana greet her on the other side? Would her sister have found their parents in the nether-life, and together they would form a ring to greet their (presumed) youngest?

It was more pointed to realize that, perhaps, she wouldn't know what to do if she had a _real_ family. She was a mutt, an orphan, the adopted black sheep. A soldier scraping by on her own merits, or, at times, her lack thereof. It was almost … uncomfortable, contemplating something different entirely, after so long of _this_. A blank nothingness almost sounded more welcoming.

And certainly preferable, should there be a beyond and were it as ridiculous a farce of 'heaven' as Soul Society – all plight and sorrow and heartache highlighted only by hard work, achievement, and overlying despair. It was worth it only because of the bright, shining stars that had lit her way (shining in varying shades of noble sable, sweet strawberry blonde, untamed red and wild orange), but Rukia felt far, far too tired to find new stars.

Bleeding, cold and alone (_but not broken – never broken, never again_), it angered her that once she had been ready to die and had only words of thanks lingering at the tip of her tongue. Even if her death sentence had been unrighteous at that time, surely such an end would have been preferable to this – stomach gaping open for all the demons to leer and salivate at, reiatsu flaring and weakening and pointedly alone in this miserable pit, filled with nothing but regret and apologies and none of the air to voice them aloud and make them real.

The only thought that made death mildly bearable was the thought that at least _they_ would be together. She and Shirayuki…

Shirayuki… Her power –

She had once flaunted it so effortlessly in Rugonkai. Somehow, it seemed only natural, in retrospect, that the tables had flipped to the polar opposite the moment she had decided she _wanted _that talent, she _wanted _that power. What had seemed natural in the slums was suddenly a fleeting ribbon, fluttering _just _out of reach in the Academy, and she had worked so meticulously to grasp it, then harder still to cultivate it.

It seemed only one of life's great many travesties that it took only a single heartbeat to lose it all Ichigo, then a matter of weeks to lose it further to a false gigai, then almost have it snuffed completely from weeks of forced intimacy with the deathstone of that cursed tower. If she had had to work _hard _to achieve it in the first time, there wasn't really a proper word to describe the second undergoing.

It was all Shirayuki's masterpiece, of course. Rukia wasn't so wistful as Yumichika or Matsumoto. She knew her sword was merely a part of herself, reflecting her own sentiments and strengths and weaknesses, but that didn't stop her from cursing the woman a bitch and bitterly resenting the gamut she put her through, again and again.

'_I suppose you're thinking some philosophical bullshit like, 'Nothing good in life comes for free,' or, 'If you don't work for it, it isn't worth it' or something,_' Rukia had challenged bitterly. '_It's coming. If I'm to stand beside him as his strength and not his weakness, we need to move forward, damnit!_' If Shirayuki were a person, she would have thrashed her by now. But somehow, kneeling quiet and alone in Nii-sama's private gardens, she couldn't bring herself to chip the perfect, unmarred, infuriatingly silent blade, though it was frozen in midair in testament to her initial plan to smash it against a nearby rock.

The minutes passed. By now, she normally would have given up and taken to a more pragmatic use of her time, like kidou or swordplay (the stubborn bitch couldn't hold back the improvement she'd glean from that practice, after all), but an icy breeze in the warm autumn afternoon chilled her spine, freezing her in place. The rising thrill of _off-ness_ was only accentuated by the realization that though the wind cut her to her core, none of the fragile leaves so much as stirred from their still perfection.

'_You are iron, but I will make you cold and tempered steel, and we will be both terrible and beautiful,_' the iced princess whispered, and suddenly, Rukia realized the 'gamut' was less a game than the careful stroke of an artist's brush. Rukia was Shirayuki's masterpiece as much as Shirayuki was Rukia's pride, after all.

'_The Winter War will be our finest dance, Rukia. Together, we will captivate and terrify them._'

That was their promise, and never again had Rukia questioned the hardship. Nor had she faltered or hesitated in her headfirst plunge into something she did not yet fully understand, but lusted after nonetheless. _He_ might not need a sword (_he had his own_), but he certainly could use a shield – and certainly one more solid than her sternum, fleshy and giving beneath seeking Arrancar hands.

Or false tridents, carried by calloused hands ripped straight from mixed nightmare and memory.

After all her work, it seemed unfair to watch it all spilling away yet again, this time in shades of crimson on a cold marble floor. "I faltered, Shirayuki. I apologize."

Shirayuki had seethed for decades over Rukia's intractable guilt, and yet now, gutted and dying in Huecho Mundo over her hesitance to strike against one who wore Kaien's face (… _wielded his sword, flaunted his stance, quirked his lips_…), the sword was eerily silent.

Rukia's eyes were blank now, but she did not need sight to visualize the sword of her soul above her, irises startlingly clear and pupils nonexistent as she peered down at her broken wielder. Aloof, as always, without a visible hint of concern as she carelessly watched the edges of Rukia's blood coagulate and frost into delicate, impossible snowflake patterns.

Somehow, she couldn't stand the thought of the blade's rejection, so she tried again. "I'm sorry, Shirayuki." The words were slightly gurgled from the blood gathering in her lungs. "Our promise –"

"We were always destined to meet again, that one with us." First she refused to speak, then she interrupted just as Rukia was prepared to voice those final things one needed to, to let go. Bitch. "Just please don't be so careless the next time an enemy dresses as a sheep."

'_Next time…_' Rukia would have laughed, had she had the breath to do so. As it were, she smiled, eyes curled in mirth as she watched her sword (_her partner, her pride_) watch her.

Shirayuki did not share her smile. "Soon, you will die. It would seem our time as Shinigami is drawing to a close," she informed her carefully – so very carefully, and Rukia knew her blade was trying to share something vital, so she listened to what she did not say.

Rukia blinked, thoughts muddled by pain and an overlying sense of confusion as to why that pain was not fading to the cold of death yet, but rather intensifying in slow, agonizing increments. "You would have me become a Hollow?" she gritted, and blinked again when the words were not accompanied by any misgiving or negative connotation to the concept.

Perhaps it was the blood loss, making her insides numb in place of her out.

"He became Vizaird when his Chain of Fate was severed. But you have no body from which to sever the chain, Rukia. You cannot become a hybrid," the taller woman reasoned, words descending like a second gut wound.

Rukia never imagined she would feel so disappointed upon hearing she could not become a hollow.

Gracefully, Shirayuki crouched low, bringing herself closer to Rukia's level, voice dropping to the kind of whisper used to share the dirtiest of secrets, and unveiled her true intentions with cool fingers twining in Rukia's hair, on her cheek, across her lips. "The hougykuya is close. It was melded into our soul for so long it recognizes us – is crying for us…"

She should have been repulsed at the thought of using the gem. She had almost died because of it; Urahara had been forever banished from Soul Society because of it; countless people would be slaughtered by fabricated Arrancar because of it.

All of this she thought, but when she spoke, what came instead was a regretful sigh. "The power it takes to use it –" _Twice the level of a captain…_

It was then that Rukia realized that her reiatsu wasn't fading at all, but rather, was being gathered – concentrated, honed. Shirayuki's face was directly before hers now, white irises wide and filled with expectation. No; the pain was not fading, but rather, was being used, like a knife methodically coiled in her gut to intensity it. Multiply it.

Something inside her was unfolding, and it was something far beyond what she had ever hoped to achieve. "You've grown in much larger leaps and bounds than I've allowed you to celebrate, Rukia. Forgive me, for hoarding it away, but I had to keep my promise as well."

How she could have possibly known, or anticipated, or even guessed where they would end up, Rukia did not know. Perhaps it was another facet of her own soul power she had yet to unlock. '_Together, we will captivate and terrify them,_' she had promised all those months gone by, and Rukia had not questioned then, and would not question now.

"If you're to stand beside him, we need to move forward," the blade echoed, and suddenly time was winding back at her, tensing, like a string pulled too tight and screaming to break.

'_We will go now, Nii-sama_,' she had spoken aloud, firm and confident and perhaps even a bit arrogant. It caused almost a heady rush, his unexpected approval. The implicit expectations that came with it went without saying, and her intention to comply at any cost was an unspoken promise between them. '_And we will come back, Nii-sama._'

'_I'll catch you on the flipside, Renji,_' she had grinned and slapped him on the back. And though he had only just moments because carefully fended off the orange-head's concern for her, his own was now shining through in shades of worry and horror. But they were partners, and he would never insult her as to verbalize those doubts now, casting cracks in that foundation of strength and trust they both so desperately needed here, so far away from everything they knew. So instead he just gave her that look, and her arrogant parting words were a promise to him to make it through this if only to assure him he had not just sentenced them both to death of varying sorts.

'_I'll save you, Inoue!_' she had sworn over and over again, at first only in the quiet depths of her heart, but then, when the words came more easily each time, aloud, as if the girl was truly a goddess who could draw strength from her devout prayers. She was friendship and brightness and sweetness, and after a life so devoid of these things for so long, Rukia promised the first girlfriend she had ever been blessed with that she would save her.

'_Of course I'll stay safe. Idiot,_' she had snorted when Ichigo's gaze had lingered just a little too long on her, brown eyes filled with too much gentleness and not enough fire for their coming battle. It was a promise, of sorts. To explore that wonderful fluttering in her stomach and the red tinge in his cheeks later, when they had the time. When it was safe to fan a fire of different sorts than bloodlust and killing and power and battle.

But, '_You are iron, but I will make you cold and tempered steel, and we will be both terrible and beautiful,_' was the promise with her soul, and somehow, among all the others that flickered like so many hell butterflies in her head, that was the brightest, the one that stood alone and aloof and proud from the rest.

'…_we need to move forward…_' Shirayuki said, and the tiny Shinigami nodded, eyes still clouded by death but now suddenly very sharp and clear.

"Yes," Rukia replied at long last, and reached to take Shirayki's hand in her own. "We will move forward."

--

--

--

_The Beginning_

--

--

--

_FIN_

_I've been hankerin' to do a Bleach story for a long while now. Being Rukia (and Rukia x Ichigo) starved in recent chapters, I figured it was long overdue._

_I had so many different ways I could have gone with this one, but most of them were very epic, and I have a bad habit of not finishing my epics, so for you (my beloved readers), I made it a oneshot with a vague possibility of continuation if the mood (and reviews ) struck right._

_Let me know if you enjoyed!_


	2. To Transcend

**In which Rukia dies and lives.**

--

--

"We will move forward," she said, and then everything faded to the brilliant white agony of her own death.

--

--

_For thee I rose, now descend all alone_

--

--

When Rukia died, Ichigo was already defeated, if not broken. Nnoitra was on his last legs, thanks to the unforeseen help of Nel. But he was still _on_ his legs, and certainly wasn't down and out yet.

He had been prepared to rush to her the first time he sensed her fade, but then Ulquiorra had shown up and thwarted his haphazard rescue plan. But, though her reiatsu had weakened, it had lingered steadily at a certain point, serving as his constant source of sanity and warm reassurance somewhere in the back of his mind (_heart?_).

'_Of course I'll stay safe. Idiot,_' she had mocked him, in different words playing across different times. And though she didn't always stay safe, (_he'd have rather her been selfish than so damn selfless, always throwing herself in the path of danger to spare others, but then he supposed she wouldn't have been Rukia_) she had always stayed _alive_. She was stubborn (_perhaps even on par with his own bullheadedness_), and when she was fixated on a goal, there was no stopping her.

And so, he stayed, and he fought to free their friend, as he knew she would want him to. But the moment her reiatsu pulsed and then finished that downward spiral, fading irreversibly to nothing, Ichigo realized he had taken for granted that she was as fixated on returning to him as he was to her.

The logical part of his mind insisted that was a childish way of looking at it. Ones desire (or lack thereof) could not alone stave off death. But at that instant in time – when he realized it was _too late_, that he had taken _too long_, that she was _gone_ – the logic receded to the despair and he knew if he couldn't blame someone (_anyone else, even her_), he would break.

Zangetsu dropped listlessly from his fingers, and watching the blade drop from the corner of his eye, he could not summon the strength to pick it up again. '_I'm sorry, ossan,_' he willed the sword to understand. '_We lost._'

And this was a defeat from which they would not (_could not_) recover. For the second time in his life, Ichigo remembered what it meant to be truly, irrevocably broken.

--

--

Rebirth was a thousand times the agony of dying – the force and strain inflicted upon her soul by the hougyoku seared her, burning away everything she was while replacing it with cold steel. When her sluggishly beating heart finally stopped, she wanted to scream but could only lay there, eyes open and unseeing while the molten burned her from the inside out.

When she opened her eyes, there was another Arrancar looming over her, his sword out and ready to strike. And then, his blood was on her face and his head was at her feet but Rukia could not concentrate on either, but rather, was overwhelmed with sight and vision not her own flickering behind her eyes.

Of Chad, lying face down and still. Of Renji and Ishida, bruised and battered and broken and stumbling at the last. Of Inoue, held back and weeping.

Of Ichigo, kneeling and bleeding and broken, hair clasped in an Arrancar's hand as he prepared to deal the finishing blow. Sword strewn carelessly to the ground, eyes listless, but most pointedly, _not fighting back_.

The anger, fury, and disgust were overshadowed only to an inexplicable, overwhelming sense of _loss_ that she did not fully understand, but certainly didn't have the time to examine.

--

--

Inoue was screaming his name over and over again, and in truth, the shrillness of her voice grated on his last nerves. She was his friend, and he certainly cared for her, but why could she not understand that it was over? Irrationally, he felt like lashing out at the useless girl – to say hurtful words as if they might help her understand.

Instead, he remained silent, repeating the realization, revisiting three words again and again as if he might wear them out and make them untrue if only he spent an eternity trying.

'Rukia is dead.'

'_Rukia is dead_.'

'_**Rukia is dead.'**_

It was selfish of him, perhaps, to kneel down and admit defeat rather than finish the rescue effort, but if he was honest with himself, the battle was already over. Chad was defeated. Renji and Ishida were close to it.

Rukia was dead.

And so was he.

Ichigo closed his eyes.

--

--

And Rukia flew on tendril wings of white spirit particles not her own, but reserved within her nonetheless. She did not think to question where the energy was coming from; that was idle musing left for a calmer time. For now, she simply accepted it in the same way she accepted the frenetic visions pounding in her head as truth and not delusion.

'_Don't die,_' she commanded silently, but when her silent pleas didn't reach him – when he still knelt and waited, placated, for the killing blow, her tone changed. '_I won't let you die!_'

--

--

When Kuchiki-san's reiatsu flickered and faded for the last time, the realization that the girl had died trying to save her hit Orihime like a fist in the stomach.

"Kuchiki-san…" She had meant to call it out, as if that might make some difference, might persuade the other girl not to go – but her throat rebelled and constricted, choking the syllables and dragging them to a harsh, tear-laden whisper.

'_Kuchiki-san… died trying to save me,_' Orihime realized, and her overactive mind was only too-quick to supply the names and faces of all the people who would be affected. Everyone had worked so hard to save the petite shinigami – it hadn't even been that long ago that they had almost lost her…

And now she was dead, because she had been unwilling to back down. Unwilling to abandon _her_.

The torrent of whirring mental faces shuddered and halted, stalled on one too-familiar face – one framed with wild orange locks. "Kurosaki-kun…" she murmured, and didn't need to wonder whether or not he already knew, because abruptly, the other teenager simply… gave up.

"Kurosaki-kun –" she choked, both shocked and surprised as he bodily slammed to his knees. "Kurosaki-kun!" she tried again, louder this time, trying to warn him as Nnoitra lunged in on his sudden advantage, twining his fingers in the substitute-shinigami's hair and raising his weapon to strike. "Kurosaki-kun!" she screamed again and again around the tightening of the arrancar's arms around her ribs, in spite of the fact that she knew her voice could never reach him.

Her voice had never been able to reach him. Orihime realized that now with sudden pointed clarity, and the knowledge ached and burned like a pit in her chest.

And the only voice that ever could was now silenced, forever.

--

--

_Beyond the pale horizon, a greaven silence_

--

--

Cold bitter wind whipped furiously at his face, and for a moment, Ichigo thought it ironic that dying didn't hurt at all – just getting there did.

He wasn't sure whether there was supposed to be life after you're killed in soul-form, but when the hand clenched in his hair released, and the wind whooshed loudly and drowned out everything else, he certainly had to admit it was a surprise that there would be after-afterlife – and that it would be so _cold_.

But then wet warmth splashed on his face, and when he opened his eyes, it was not to some new majestic landscape, but rather to the barren wastelands of Heucho Mundo, and to blood, and to a white jacket flapping before him.

Nnoitra's arm lay severed on the ground, Nnoitra himself looking pale and shocked and several feet away –

And between the two, stood Rukia.

Even with her back turned to him, stiff and straight as she faced as the espada; even with her reiatsu flaring with such wild and foreign abandon so unlike her own, only _barely_ tasting of her essence; even wearing a white jacket more similar to that of an arrancar's than a shinigami's; even without looking at him, he knew it was her.

His throat tightened, and he reached for her. He needed to touch her more than he needed to breathe. He was not embarrassed by the tears sliding down his cheeks.

"R – Rukia –"

--

--

Later, Orihime would not be embarrassed at all to admit that when Kuchiki-san quite literally descended from above to intervene between Kurosaki-kun and Nnoitra, she was quite positive she was an angel. Or a figment of her imagination. Or, perhaps, some new form of her power.

But when Nnoitra's arm went flying and she found herself wincing at the brutality, she knew it was not her will that saved Kurosaki-kun. And when she found herself staring numbly at the back of a stark-raven bob that was too-familiar even if the jacket was not, she was only that much more certain that she had finally snapped, as Tatsuki-san often teased she might.

"Kuchiki-san…" she whimpered, and her knees buckled beneath her when Tesla's support was withdrawn.

"Nnoitra-sama!" the arrancar screamed, but the quicksilver arc of his frantic lunge was transformed to artful ribbons of blood as Kuchiki-san whirled and neatly sliced him in two.

Such a neat, clean, and _savage_ kill. Perfect in technique, and lacking in any hesitation – any weakness. "K – Kuchiki-san…" Orihime trembled, uncertain. The other girl had not even blinked – had not even hesitated before snuffing out another life.

Kurosaki-kun, of course, was more insistent upon being heard. His voice came a little louder – a little more urgent – as one battered hand clenched into Kuchiki's white sleeve.

"Rukia –"

Orihime was glad his back was turned to her. She thought her heart might break, if she saw the expression on his face as Kuchiki-san neatly yanked her cuff from his grip. Even seeing his face when he later recounted it (_even seeing his face when he later recalled anything at all about their fated trip to Heucho Mundo_) was enough to make her heart weep for him.

When the other girl tipped her head to address him, her gaze (_now with opalescent, silvery-white irises that were not hers_) was cool. "This is not the man I know you to be," she hissed, and her eyes (_those unreadable orbs that were not Rukia's_) brushed right over him to Orihime.

Orihime was ashamed of the chill that wracked her spine when the woman who had died trying to save her (_but she hadn't really died if she was here, right?_) looked at her.

"Protect him," Kuchiki-san ordered, and did not even wait for a reply. So great was her trust in Orihime – even greater than Orihime's trust in herself. Hadn't it been proven only moments before once and for all? Protecting – truly protecting, at the expense of anothers life – was an order she would always be innately incapable of.

But Kuchiki-san did not wait for Orihime's reply. Instead, she cast an odd look at the pristine, blood streaked white sword in her right hand, as if considering something. Then, resolutely, she announced, "These winter winds… they might lead you far away," and when she swiped her sword, this time everything faded to white.

--

--

_Rise for me, sooth my heart_

--

--

The moment Rukia realized she not infallible was when Ichimaru Gin's zanpakuto pierced through her chest, bursting before her eyes in a spectacular spray of crimson that seemed all too eager to depart.

The moment Ichimaru Gin realized she was close enough to it, however, was when the last ditch underhanded stab at victory only elicited a relieved, almost giddy smile from her.

'_It hurts… but somehow, I cannot bring myself to care_.' It was a dizzying kind of realization, to see that her blood was still as red as it ever was. To see that it was not frozen solid in her veins, as it felt. Even though the elongated blade pierced dangerously close to her heart, she felt no particular worry over it, and couldn't quite place her finger on the reason why.

She easily lopped off the head of the arrancar she had been fighting, only slightly impatient with herself for having been distracted enough to not notice the former Captain's approach. But in the end, she found it didn't bother her too much. The reunion seemed fitting, somehow. She had always felt guilty that Byakuya had taken the Shinso's wound fated for her; this was almost like a reprieve – a way to rewrite their history.

She didn't even have a desire to pull herself from the blade, or to remove it from her chest at all. Instead, she was mesmerized by its sparkling ruby length before her, and she wanted nothing more than to touch it –

_Reaching…_

The blade flickered and dissipated beneath her tentative stroke, leaving melting swirls like so many quicksilver eddies in its wake. When Rukia saw this, she knew it was not for the first time, but rather the second, and her elated smile turned to a bitter frown in an instant.

"Bastard," she hissed between clenched teeth, expecting something more to happen. But the tense moment slipped by, and there was no wrenching for power within her, and nor any other sign of _him_…

And so, she allowed herself to twist her neck and cast a cool, disinterested glance when she heard Ichimaru's disbelieving hiss of, "Mon…ster…"

She was furious, not at him but rather at her unconscious use of power so clearly not her own. But she didn't have the liberty of licking her own wounds first, and so, her scorn shifted easily towards the shocked looking traitor. "If I am a monster, then what does that make you, who would knowingly and deliberately betray God's soldiers?"

Even in the face of a hot scorn that was so utterly unlike her – even in the face of having had his zanpakuto disintegrated before his very eyes, he yet still reverted back to that snide, mocking tone. "Look at yourself, Rukia-chan. Your reiatsu is not that of a shinigami. You are not God's soldier anymore."

He meant to rattle her – to pull a shroud from over her eyes and make her aghast at what she now was. He meant to manipulate her as he did everyone else – not to betray her loved ones, no, that was far too simple, far too plain cut. He took it a step further, always that extra effort, nurturing the seedlings of insecurity to fester and rot into self-betrayal and a shattered soul.

He meant to break her, and at one time, he might have succeeded. But Rukia was not looking as through a veil, and though the reiatsu swirling in mad tempest around her was not shinigami, she was not aghast. His uncertainty was the sweetest, headiest wine. "I am not God's soldier," she repeated, acquiescent, and paused to roll the words on her tongue, weigh them – taste them.

Savor them.

"I am God's sword. God's right hand. God's justice." Shirayuki was the wind, whispering seductively in her ears, thrumming in excitement and pleasure in her hand. "I am a tempest, sent to wash away all signs of you from this world."

When she rotated her blade before her, she knew that Shirayuki's dances were too not enough for _him_. Fixated, she watched as the blade emitted a light and spiritual pressure both new and familiar. Rukia smiled, filled with content and agonizing longing all at once.

"I am _Transcendence_," she concluded, calm smile still on her face even as she felt the color bleaching from her eyes, and the foreign power that was her now own concentrating and expounding even still. "And you, Ichimaru Gin… you, are no more."

--

--

--

--

**Read it? Review it!**

I am desperate for criticism of my writing. I want to improve my style, narration, wording, characterization – everything and anything.

Cookies and hats off if you can guess where the italics come from before revealed at the end, probably of the next chapter. There should be anywhere from one to three more chapters, depending on how many reviews I get.

Advice for upcoming chapters is appreciated. I'm planning on taking it in sort of a dark and twisted direction, so let me know if you approve.

**Author's Recommendations: **

So, there are tons of ways this could have gone (or could go, continued). But I want to share with you all, so your lives will be complete (and you understand why I went this way). These are all in my favs, so check them out.

**Breaking the Girl & Full Circle by Kilonji **(and I hope you're still reading, Kilonji ) are wonderful portrayals of what would happen if Rukia were captured and kept as a prisoner of war by Heucho Mundo. Real and disturbing and inspiring in the best kind of way. Good. Go read it.

**Cold Rain by altersuperego** explores an Arrancar Rukia, so I decided not to go in that direction. It's been done, and done beautifully. The world didn't need me to muddle it up. Check it out.

**Waiting by MultipleCyrosis** really delves into the GodsRealm concept. It's spectacular and mind-blowing. I had wondered on it myself, but that's a wonderful story, and I suppose the one that is closest to what I decided to do. Only not really. But sooo good.

And maybe **drop a line and tell these authors I sent you**, so next time I beg and plead for updates from them they promptly comply!


	3. To Be Changed

**In which Rukia realizes the consequences of her choice. Violence and a tiny bit of language, but only hints at the dark, twisted, almost smuttiness to come.**

--

--

--

--

_It's in her heart, the same desire_

--

--

In another time – in another place –Kuchiki Rukia would have balked at the concept of fighting an unarmed man. She was a soldier – never a knave, even when running wild as a hound on the streets.

As a thirsting child on the streets of Rukongai, more than once she had debased herself to trickery and deceit to acquire the staples of life. But always against '_them_' – the upper echelon that sought to take everything that was good and hoard it away from all who were unfortunate.

Never, ever – not even once – had she thought to turn against even the nastiest, most spiteful of the other street urchins. They were all kin, in a way, even if only Renji and a select few were her nakama.

Even before having pedigree bestowed upon her, before inheriting all the upper Seireitei peering down elegantly crafted aristocratic noses to judge her every motion, Rukia had nobility, class, and character. These were things borne in your soul, not petty honorifics. They were inherent in her actions, always to protect those whom she deemed worthy – always to uphold an honor and justice that was higher than she.

She had turned her sword against creatures who were not hollows only twice before. First, she had killed a man she cared for very dearly. Second, she had given up everything to save a boy she did not know at all, and did not yet know she would grow to love.

Ichimaru Gin was a traitor. That was as stark as the crimson now, cooled anddripping from her fingertips, contrasting in artful splatters on the cold, marble-like expanse on which they now danced. But before being a traitor, he was a shinigami. He was kin, in a way, and it was not her right to pass judgment upon him. That was Soul Society's place – a right reserved for the Central 46, for the Captains, and for all the others Gin's treachery had hurt far more than her.

Ichimaru Gin's justice was something that rightfully belonged to Rangiku Matsumoto, perhaps, above all others.

But facing him here, in the dusty bowels of monster's paradise, far away from everything she knew, with no eyes to weigh her motions, there was no longer honor and justice higher than she. There was her nakama and the viper before her who had meant to hurt them.

And so even with no sword with which defend himself, Kuchiki Rukia did not balk.

That was not to say he was defenseless. At first, the arrancar came in waves, though whether to aid their master's partner, desperate to prove their strength against a new opponent, or simply in thirst for blood wasn't clear.

To his credit, Ichimaru did not take the opportunity to run. (_Perhaps he knew that if he did, he would only die tired._) By the time the wave trickled away to just 5, then 3, then finally just left the two of them, Rukia cocked her head and noted that the other shinigami had picked up one of the arrancar's discarded swords. "They aren't coming for you anymore, Gin."

"They say all good things come to an end," he chided back, leering meaningfully at the steady drip of red trailing in her wake, trailing steadily down her arms from the wound in her chest.

She barely spared a glance, only irritably flicking the wetness from her fingertips. "It is not only good things that do."

"That's what they'll say when they execute you for becoming this _thing_," he taunted, childishly clinging back to his earlier tactics. Rukia smiled.

"Then it's a shame you won't live to attend. I know how much you'd enjoy it."

And with that, she was upon him.

It was unwieldy in his hands. It was clear it had been a lifetime since he had lowered himself to even touch a sword other than his precious Shinso. This arrancar sword was all bone and jagged edges, nothing at all like the heft or the grace of his soul's blade. Not that it would have made a difference, but secretly she was disappointed there was no better suited blade with which he could die.

(_But even deeper, she resented herself for displaying _that_ power… the same that had claimed so many dear to her, so many long years ago. But she could not think of that. Now here, not now…_)

Once, he was worlds above her in all four forms of shinigami combat. It was only logical, that a captain should be over a relatively young and indisputably low rank like herself, after all. In swordsmanship, hand-to-hand-combat, footwork – even kidou – he would have beaten her soundly by now, with or without his weapon of choice.

But she had transcended beyond shinigami _or_ arrancar. She was something new, and her bursting spiritual pressure, blinding speed, and utter lack of remorse or indecision was the proof.

He was always wispy – she had never known his style of combat to be overpowering his opponents. But even so, when their swords crossed, she found herself surprised at how quickly he pulled back – _(how quickly he retreated) _–how easily he crumbled beneath her force.

At first, there was silence between them. Their cadence was an enticing beat of sword clangs, foot pads, heaving breaths and the odd patter of blood. When he realized the tide was turning, suddenly he began to speak. Harsh words – accusing words – growing more vicious and grasping desperately at every truth about her he knew as he grasped desperately for the one way he _knew_ he could beat her.

One sloppy attack was followed hastily by three fleeing lunges before she lazily bothered to swat at him again. He was like a mouse caught easily within her paws. Though he managed to cut her – stab her – slice her – it was because she let him. They were worlds apart again, and Rukia actually regretted that she never had a chance to face the man who had taunted her for so long as an equal.

When she felt a spiritual pressure far greater than her current quarry's approaching, she was not foolish enough to think she could continue to play. She might have become more powerful, but she doubted she was immortal. And so, with little thought to it, she let loose, bursting from her own energy restriction like light into the darkness.

Perhaps he sensed the other presence too. Knowing she would be going for the kill, he tried first, finally going where she had known he would all along – her heart. "You didn't kill him because he became a hollow; you killed him to bury the evidence of your own shame, you goddamn whore."

Shirayuki sliced through the arrancar sword as if it were butter, and through him... as if he was something less than butter.

She let Shirayuki catch on his hip, digging into the bone as she leaned forward to whisper in his ear. "Did you mean to defeat me from the inside out, Ichimaru?" Maliciously, she twisted the blade deeper into him, twirling entrails and guts in its wake; he groaned and sweated in his agony. "Is it not ironic, that it is I now within you?"

He whined something halfway between a retort and a beg. If she had not severed his lungs, she knew he would be screaming. Knowing this, she leered in his face. "If you yelp loud enough, will your master come save you, dog?"

She might have said more, but Shirayuki was whispering urgently in her ear, and realistically, Rukia already knew her true enemy was far too close now to slip up. And so, she jerked her sword from Ichimaru's stomach and stepped back, frowning disapprovingly as he collapsed into such a grotesque, boneless pool of gore. "This is too good and end for you," she admitted. "But consider it a gift. An apology, for Shinso."

'_An apology, for Matsumoto._'

And when she released the new dance that was not hers and she did not fully understand yet, she was only disappointed there was so little blood and that he had not the breath to even scream.

**--**

**--**

She did not flee, or hide, or even shrink away when she felt his spiritual presence pressing down on her. She didn't even turn to face him, opting instead to glance over her shoulder and calling mockingly, "Your number one is as nothing but a blizzard of ash, Aizen."

As if to demonstrate, she extended a hand and made as if to blow a kiss; the biting wind that kicked up easily sent the white dust to buffet at his face.

His face: cool, calm, and collected, as ever. Soul Society hadn't realized his true talent lay in deceit until too late, but knowing that now all too well, Rukia was not fooled or put off by the indifferent, ever-in-control expression plastered thereupon. She was far more interested in that mild spark of doubt (_disbelief, fear?_) hiding in his eyes.

"Gin was careless. I am not."

"Aren't you?" Disinterestedly, she sneaked a hand into her robe, hovering over her heart before withdrawing with the hougyoku. She regarded it with bored idleness for a few moments before strewing it carelessly towards him, leaving the tiny gem to bounce and skid on the unmarred marble floors between them.

He stared at it, and the emotions warring in his eyes were hard to read, though hers were not. '_Pick it up_,' she dared. He did not.

Rukia cocked her head. "You came for the bauble, didn't you?"

"What did you do to it?" He sounded more curious than angry, but she knew better than to take anything about Sosuke Aizen at face value.

"I used it," she replied simply – honestly – and in his neutral glare, she could read the question his pride would never allow him to ask. '_How did you use it so much differently than I?_'

The grin tugging at her lips was feral and proud; her tone was haughty. "You meant to raise yourself to heaven by piling dirt on which to stand. I pulled a piece down and crafted it within myself."

There was silence for a while between them. Finally, Aizen spoke, and his voice was no longer so calm. "It's empty," he stated.

Though it wasn't a question, she felt compelled to answer anyway. "You're quite right. The hougyoku will be of no use to you anymore." The corners of her lips tugged upwards just a hare.

He frowned, and she almost laughed out loud at the pettiness of the gesture. Did he think all women would simper and weep under his disapproval like his pretty little lieutenant back in Soul Society? "You have left me no choice, Kuchiki Rukia. This farce has gone on long enough. I will simply have to bind that new power of yours back into the stone. Your soul will be unmade in the process, I'm afraid." His voice did not waver, but inside, his soul trembled. She was certain of it.

"Most unfortunate," she primed dolefully, lips quirking a little more.

"_Kudakero, Kyōka Suigetsu,_" he commanded, and the man who single-handedly brought chaos and destruction upon all of Soul Society with his sword drew solely for her.

"_Mai ien, Sode no Shirayki,_" she replied, and it began.

--

--

_Deep as the sea, wailing secrecies are burning in me_

--

--

She had paid no mind to her robes until the moment she stepped through the gate into Soul Society. It was only at their gasps and whispers that she bothered to look upon herself.

Gone were her shinigami robes. In their stead was a sleeker cut jacket, once white in color though now sanguine in dried blood splatters both hers and not. The design was not unlike that worn in Ichigo's bankai – or, for that matter, the arrancar Aaroniero's.

The errant thought of Aaroniero instantly soured her mood, reminding her that there were questions she had yet to answer for herself that somehow tied back to him.

She allowed herself to be swallowed by the crowd and did not balk when they escorted her to the First Division Headquarters with suspicious eyes and anxious, unanswered inquiries. By the time they arrived at the Central Court, of course, word had traveled ahead, and it seemed the greater part of Soul Society was already waiting.

When Yamamoto asked of the fate of the traitors, Rukia did not blink.

"They are dead," she replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

When Hinamori tentatively came forward, Aizen's name lingering unspoken on the tip of her tongue, Rukia searched for the guilt for having killed one so loved (_even if manipulated and perversely so_) and found none. "Aizen is dead," she clarified unapologetically, and did not flinch when the girl openly wept and fled from her presence.

In fact, she didn't feel in the slightest bit put off until she noticed Matsumoto hovering quietly at the back of the crowd. There wasn't even a hint of accusation or resentment hiding in the older woman's soft aquamarine gaze, just a melancholy, quiet acceptance.

Rukia cared for Matsumoto. This, she knew. Matsumoto had helped protect Karakura town and its residents countless times; she had provided comfort when needed, and more importantly, harsh reprimands when necessary. Matsumoto was her friend, role model – sister-in-arms.

But seeing the other woman's despair and knowing she was the direct cause of it oddly stirred nothing inside her. Rukia did not feel sorry for having killed Gin, even though she was uncertain as to extent to which her attack had affected him. (_Had she merely 'killed' him, or did her new abilities go beyond just that? Had she somehow unmade his soul? There was certainly nothing left of his body…_) The ramifications were breathtaking.

No; Rukia did not feel sorry, but she certainly felt _something_ unsettling, whining incessantly in the back of her consciousness. Pitched just enough to be bothersome, but not enough to really pinpoint and _hear_.

There were quiet murmurs of doubt and speculation, but no one spoke directly to her, and so she was left alone in the hissing basket of snakes until a firm hand took hold of her arm and directed her from the throng.

--

--

Byakuya likely been insistent that his right as her caretaker left him to build the 'honor-guard' meant to watch her when she returned. The others did not trust her, she now realized – they watched her with wide eyes mixed with equal parts fear, misgiving, and loathing. At one time, it would have bothered her, but as she watched them watch her, she found herself disinterested, somehow aloof and unable to bring herself to care about the whispers set off like so many waves in her wake.

'_She was alone in Heuco Mundo for three entire days,_' they whispered, shuddered, and flinched away as she passed as if they might open some portal there if they touched her. As if she was cursed, contagiously so. As if they saw hells gate opened in her.

The walk through the Seireitei to the manor was a long and silent one, permeated only by the hushed voices of others, not once by hers or his. When they entered the manor, she was not surprised when the hand-picked guards halted to form a line on the outside rather than following within; undoubtedly, to keep his own sister under such scrupulous lock and key within his very home was too grave an insult for the noble captain to bear.

When the silence between them was finally broken, Byakuya's voice was barely audible over the sliding of the shoji screen as he bared her quarters to her. "The servants will attend to your needs –"

"I will require nothing. Please send them away," Rukia interrupted impatiently, not even bothering to contemplate the words before sending them flying from her mouth. When he turned and gave her a wide-eyed, disbelieving stare, it took her several moments to realize why.

'_I interrupted him_.' At one time, she likely would have died of embarrassment, or at least knelt prostrate before him and begged forgiveness for such an insult. But even after recognizing her faux paux, she found herself returning his gaze indifferently, daring him to challenge her – hoping, even, that he would.

It was then that she realized what had been unsettling her so since her return. She was no longer shinigami. That, she already knew. But what more, she realized with sudden pointed clarity, in a way she was no longer Kuchiki Rukia either.

--

--

_So wide a sea, may I overcome_

--

--

The moment Byakuya left her to her own devices, she similarly left the Seireitei to its own. Kneeling calmly on the plain wooden floor, Rukia closed her eyes and reflected within. What once took scores of minutes or even hours now was instantaneous.

Somehow, she had already known what she was going to find even before she regressed into her own inner world.

It hadn't changed much, really. The landscape was still barren, a wintry tundra. The sun still set the horizon ablaze with frost that appeared as so much diamond dusting the surface. Impossibly, the tundra was bared to her when she pushed aside a delicate shoji screen. From where she was coming, she wasn't entirely sure, but the screen was always there, and so she slid it open and descended from on high towards the white purity below.

Shirayuki shadowed one step behind and a half to her right, standing tall and proud in a way Rukia knew she would never emulate, even after forty years of relentless training by the Kuchiki elders. The sword was quiet, speculative, but a supportive force to be reckoned as she shadowed Rukia's agitated stride towards the one thing that _wasn't_ the same.

The intruder.

"Aaroniero." She spat the name like a vile poison. The blade in her hand was icy fire, and if she didn't require him for answers, she would have cut off that familiar face he did not deserve to wear.

Once she had her answers, however, she would. And if he could regenerate his features even here, in the depths of her realm, then she would tear that visage from him again and again until his powers failed him.

He blinked at her as if in surprise; if he sensed the imminent threat, his guileless expression did not reflect it. "Aaroniero is dead. You killed him, Kuchiki-sama."

The honorifics did nothing to placate her. Something about hearing _his_ voice use such a high title towards her perverted the very foundation of her lingering fondness for him. Kaien-dono had treated her as an ordinary subordinate. If even once in her future she should remember his voice and recall 'Kuchiki-sama' rather than simply 'Kuchiki' or 'Rukia', she would kill this beast a million times again and still not be quenched.

"Then who are you? What manner of fool would _dare_ to wear his face, _here_, in my domain?" she snarled, and her hand was in his robes (_oh god, his shinigami robes, not that frilly white thing the arrancar had donned – Kaien-dono's robes, not Aaeoniero's_), and the sword in her hand was recoiled and drawn and prepared to drive through his throat.

She was livid, an angry writhing sun next to Shirayuki's cool impassive moon. She almost didn't care to hear his reply; almost.

But she hesitated, and he spoke. "I am… something like Metastacia, I believe." Though he was placatory it only angered her further; her fingers dug deeper into his kosode.

His skin was warm.

"Do not speak in riddles to me, Hollow," she snarled through clenched teeth. "Who are you?"

She looked into his eyes (_his soft, honest eyes_), and she knew he was not weaving half-truths for her. At least not purposefully.

"I am Metastacia, who absorbed the shinigami Kaien and Miyako among many others, and was absorbed in turn by the gillian Aaroniero Arleri – and then by you, it seems, upon your victory over him."

She blinked, flexed her hand; considered cutting off his head just for spite. In the end, she was only able to revert back to denial. "You _lie_."

"You told the traitor Aizen that you made heaven a part of yourself. But that was not the full truth of it; you captured no small part of hell and wove it into your soul as well." He was watching her earnestly as he paused in his narration, not quite long enough for her to interrupt. "You were too close to Aaroniero when you _changed_. In the last, grasping for spiritual energy, you unmade him… and remade him, into a part of yourself."

"That is a lie," Rukia hissed, but her anger was borne of fear that his words were true.

"When you first awoke, you were able to see visions not your own. Aaroniero was able to project what was happening to his comrades; you can receive. You were expounding spiritual energy that you recognized wasn't your own, but was coming from you nonetheless. Aaroniero absorbed hollows and enslaved them, tapping into them like a reservoir of unlimited power. You are able to absorb hollows… but as far as I can tell, you aren't enslaving them, but rather setting them free. Purifying them."

"That can't be," she whispered, and hated him for his twisted logic that made too much sense. Hated Aaroniero for somehow managing to survive, if only in essence. Hated herself, for allowing it to happen.

"A shinigami's zanpakuto instantly cleanses a hollow of sins committed after death, leaving the tortured soul to move on in peace. Think of all that dark angst and energy that is let go, in a single stab. All of the energy that is wasted," he continued, tone echoing eerily of Kaien-dono's firm lectures. He spoke patiently with her, as if a teacher and not a monster lurking here in the depths of her very soul. "You've… taken some liberties in making the process… more efficient, one might say."

Something clawed at her throat, and in the suddenly uncomfortable hush, she realized the wind here was no longer tranquil. How could she have missed those distant screams before? How could she have not noticed their moans and wails, chill on the gentle breeze?

And his skin was so warm against her knuckles…

Repulsed, she let go, but his eyes trailed in her wake as she backed hastily away.

"Less the ones who were purified and moved on already during your battles in Heucho Mundo, the 33,650 hollows he absorbed are here. Inside you," he finally finished, and she knew his words were truth.

The wetness around her eyes was as biting as the bile in her throat. "What… have I done?"

The creature-who-was-not-Kaien opened his mouth to speak, but his words were drowned out by a sudden gust of wind and a familiar voice carried on it. "_Rukia!_"

Her stomach lurched, and had she been in her real body, she would have thrown up. "Ichigo." How could she have been so naive, going to meditate so quickly? Of course Ichigo would still be in Soul Society. Of course he would be looking for her upon hearing of her return.

(_Of course, she couldn't bear to have him look at her. Not now. Not like this. Not with _this _inside of her._)

"_Oi! Rukia!_" His voice carried much stronger this time, and his agitation was apparent. In the far, far distance, she thought she heard a struggle. (_Probably with the honor-guard posted at the manor gates._)

The creature across from her smiled (_so genuinely she almost wanted to believe_). When he spoke this time, his words were not carried away by the unforgiving wind. "You should go to him." When she remained frozen staring at him, his eyes curled in amusement. "I will be here when you come back," he assured, as if to mollify.

'_That what I'm afraid of,_' she wanted to reply, but then Ichigo's resounding "_Oi!_" tore through her world again, and this time there was no ignoring it.

--

--

**Read it? Review it!**

Heh… you see where this is going, don't you? Picking up on the hints yet? I'm not sure how to have Ichigo react to seeing her again, or Rukia act, so suggestions, suggestions people! And I would like to change the name of the story, so suggestions are welcome there as well.

**Author's Notes:**

This story now brought to you freshly beta-ed by **Kilonji**. So big thanks to her, go read her stuff, it's amazing.

I wasn't going to include the Ichimaru Gin fight, and just skip right to Aizen, but I added it just for Kilonji's review of the last chapter. I hope it added to the ambiance. And see, people? If you make me happy with reviews, I'll try to bend over backwards to accommodate you as well!

Not good with Japanese. I wanted to use "Transcend" or "Transcendence" as some sort of a command associated with Rukia's different release state, but I couldn't find any such word, so instead I went with her actual command _mai_, dance and _ien_, for beyond.


	4. To Sin

**In which Rukia moves both forward and back. Violence, language, hints of smuttiness.**

--

--

_From the empty pain within_

--

--

Contrary to popular opinion, Orihime was not dumb. Quite the opposite, really; she was perceptive – sometimes painfully so – of others and their inner workings. Her ditsy demeanor put them at ease, made them drop their masks and shrouds and allowed her to glimpse into them and observe things would otherwise have ever known – things that the rest of the world never _would_ know.

In their first hours back from Soul Society, too much time had passed – too many trials had been faced, too many dangers narrowly escaped – for the common, comfortable lies to continue between them. They were all exhausted, physically, mentally – emotionally. Too tired for confessions, too tired to make an effort to maintain façade. Too tired to do anything but lay it all bare for all the world to see.

Orihime had wept openly and without pretenses, her tears unassumingly wetting Uryuu's bloodstained Quincy cape in her saline sorrow, though the vermillion simply refused to fade. She had wept for herself, certainly – she had been through so much, and had certainly never expected such an outpouring of devotion in saving her. She had cried for Uryuu as well, so tired and worn and battered, so close to death and yet still shimmering in his faithful determination to save her. For Chad, who had come through the portal so soundly defeated, so injured.

She had cried for Keigo and Mizuiro, who had been left so alone in their dejection while everyone had come for her.

She had cried for Tatsuki, though she was now able to realize that those tears were different from the rest. They were rooted in not sorrow, but in joy. Tatsuki had not been able to come to Hueco Mundo for her. Tatsuki was safe all along, and it wasn't until she was back – until the opportune time had slipped away and Tatsuki had remained unharmed for the duration – that Orihime recognized those feelings.

When the karate-champion had rushed into Urahara-san's training basement, she did two things that she had never done before:

First, she struck Orihime across the face.

Orihime froze for a moment, her head snapped to the side even as the offended cheek burned and tingled from the force of the open-handed blow. For one terrible second, she wondered: was it possible? Could she have misjudged the other girl and her relationship with her, so very, very much-?

And then, Tatsuki spoke. "Don't you know I would _die_ for you?"

Like a deer blinded in headlights, she was uncertain and entirely incapable of processing the claim. The pretenses were gone – everything was different now, the _world _was different now, and suddenly Orihime wasn't sure what to do about it. But Tatsuki had never been the more patient of the two of them, and growing quickly agitated with Orihime's hesitance, yanked her into her strong arms, and did the second thing she had never done before: she kissed Orihime.

It was all salty with her tears and angry as it was relieved, but in the back of her mind, Orihime had thought, '_I think I could get used to this._'

"Never leave me again, Orihime – never again, please –" Somewhere in between, the anger morphed and twisted into desperation – into shameless begging, and Orihime's heart twisted painfully in her chest. "I would die for you… You know that, don't you?"

Orihime smiled around the tears filling her eyes; this time, she did not cry for Ichigo, but with him, because she thought she might finally understand his grief – understand his sudden emptiness, and understand the way he now just sat, removed from the rest of the group, hollow and alone after Urahara had been unsuccessful in reopening the gate.

"I know you would, Tatsuki-chan," she whispered, burying her face into the brunette's shoulder. '_But I would never want you to…_'

'_Kuchiki-san..._' she had thought, and closed her eyes.

--

--

She opened her eyes just as the shoji screen to her room slammed open. The wood of the frame cracked loudly from the excess use of force, but Rukia did not flinch.

She blinked owlishly at him, nonplussed by the way his face was red with exertion and his chest heaved while he struggled with his breath.

Their eyes caught, his smoldering in a turmoil of emotions while hers remained carefully calm. Her room (though modest and relatively small for a Kuchiki's quarters) was a massive, cherry-wood desert stretching between them, but in spite of that, for a blissful moment, the world seemed to right itself. (_He's alive, he's alive, he's alive_, her soul chanted, and for the first time since she had died, she truly felt alive.)

"Rukia?"

Just as quickly as the exhilaration came, it left. His gaze branded her, licking in painful fire across her skin. (_Does he know what's inside of me? Does he know I now house Kaien's killer – _my_ killer? That the darkness is a part of me?_)

"Oi – Rukia – look at me –"

Huffing a sigh of impatience, she finally turned her gaze upon him. "Most would be fighting to get _outside_ the ring of guards," she noted with idle derisiveness. '_Most are afraid of me._ _As they should be,_' that inner voice mocked.

Her own words set something in motion and when it clicked into place, the realization unsettled her for a moment. Her stomach knotted to ice as she remembered their eyes, so filled with fear and disgust. '_Were they able to see before even I did? Just by looking at me, could they know… what's inside of me?_'

There was something about her eyes that made him flinch, and all at once, her question was answered, though she wished it hadn't been. Suddenly agitated, she turned her head; his gaze was too stifling.

"I wish for you to leave."

"Rukia –"

--

--

When she averted her gaze – wouldn't look at him –something about the rejection killed him inside for the second time this week. '_Please don't,_' something pathetically needy and wanton cried within him. '_Please don't go away like that, when I only just got you back._' He wasn't even thinking – couldn't think – so instead he leapt.

"OI! LOOK AT ME!" he shouted – wanted to throttle her, kill her (_kiss her_)…

Ichigo froze the instant he touched her.

"Y-you're cold –"

As if those were the magic works to unlocking the enigma known as Kuchiki Rukia, her head whirled and her eyes were suddenly on him. Only they were not her eyes – they were white, cold, and held not even a trace hint of the humor and playfulness, or even the haughty confidence that was her. Instead, it was all replaced with that barren, barren cold…

He would hate himself forever for letting his hands slide off her so easily. He would later realize that he did not only let her go physically in that moment. Things would never be the same – things could never be ok again…

--

--

"W – what did you do -?" he stuttered – halted – froze, horrified and aghast and amazed all at once.

When he – the mortal boy who had fought all of Soul Society just to save her from a premature death sentence that she had deserved all along – let her go, she realized the change was more than just inside of her. (_Don't look at me, please don't look at me…_)

And all at once, it was all she could do to lash out – to hurt him, for hurting her. To hurt him, by telling the awful truth. "There was no trick, Kurosaki Ichigo. You did not _think_ Kuchiki Rukia died. She did. And a great many things died with her." She watched him carefully from the corner of her eye, and wondered who her words hurt more: him, or herself.

If she had only the slack, broken look in his eyes to judge from, she undoubtedly would have voted for him. She, however, was privy to the anguished screaming of her own soul, and the wrenching gut in her stomach as she dragged the words out from behind her perfect, hollow mask of poise.

Their eyes met – his beseeching, and hers echoing the notion in a convoluted, distant way. Outwardly dispassionate, she raised her chin and prepared herself.

Seppuku. Forever honorable – she would rather die than besmirch his untainted brightness; endure torture rather than endanger him ever again.

"I have no use for you, Kurosaki Ichigo."

The words might hurt him, but they were killing her.

(_I cannot be weak. But because I am, you must go, Ichigo; far away from me._)

--

--

When Keigo came bursting through her apartment door, screeching that Renji had just come to tell Ichigo that Kuichi-san was back, Orihime had smiled (truly, honestly smiled, without weights tugging at her heart for having the audacity to make such a gesture) for the first time since she had been saved.

"Sugoi…" she had breathed. "Sugoi!" And before she even remembered moving, she was on her feet, dancing, yanking an unwitting Tatsuki to celebrate along with her.

'_Everything is going to be ok,_' she thought. '_Kurosaki-kun is going to be ok!_'

She had given him some lead time to be alone with Kuchiki-san before finally losing her seeming endless patience. "Come on, Tatsuki-chan!" she had cheered. "We have to go thank her – Kuchiki-san helped save me!"

"Ano, Orihime –" Tatsuki seemed uncertain, but Orihime refused to let her mild confusion tarnish the moment.

"Urahara-san will make a gateway to send us, just like he did for Ishida-kun and Sado-kun and Kurosaki-san and I the first time – only after all the research he's been doing on the portals, I can't imagine it'll take him days to prepare – probably only hours by now! I mean, he managed to figure out a way to open a gate to Hueco Mundo, and Urahara-san is smart, so, it'll be like last time… only faster. Only this time, we don't need to go to save Kuchiki-san! Because_ she _saved _us _this time!" She giggled madly, and when Tatsuki only stared at her blankly, she grabbed the girl again, forcing her into the dance. "Kuchiki-san is safe – we're all safe – Kurosaki-kun is going to be ok – everything is ok!"

Belatedly, she realized that Tatsuki's blank look wasn't from any deliberate party-pooper-ing, but rather from genuine confusion. It hadn't even occurred to her that no one had caught her up on everything that had happened. Sobering (but only a little bit), Orihime clasped the other girls calloused hands and held them tightly to her chest. "It's ok, Tatsuki-chan! I'll tell you the whole story on our way there!"

'_I'll tell you _everything_ that's important to me from now on, Tatsuki-chan – I promise._'

Maybe the first time around Urahara had only stalled to give them more time to train. Orihime wasn't a deceptive kind of person like that, but somehow she had an inkling that Urahara-san's mind worked in ways that she would never understand. It was just as she predicted; he was able to open a gateway in surprisingly little time. He insisted that he had actually been preparing to open it since he had expected all of them to want to visit Kuchiki-san when she returned, but Orihime didn't really believe him. She had overheard his attempt at comforting Kurosaki-kun over Kuchiki-san's death what seemed like only hours ago; he had expected nothing.

But just the same, none of that mattered now – not even a little bit. Kuchiki-san was alive; everything was ok now.

They made it all the way to the entrance of the Kuchiki estate before running into Kurosaki-san, who was trudging (for lack of better description) a hesitant retreat. The second she saw him, she knew something was wrong.

"Ano, Kurosaki-kun…?" she had started, and he jerked, startled – hadn't even been aware of her presence until she spoke.

He faltered, hand suddenly rubbing agitatedly at the back of his head – eyes everywhere except hers. "I… don't think you should go in right now." There was something wrong about the way he toed awkwardly at the ground – shifted uneasily –

About the way his eyes, even though averted from her, sparkled suspiciously with tears.

Orihime's joyful expression faltered. "Kurosaki-kun?"

"I think… she needs some time to sort things through," he replied, and as if sensing her uneasiness, he smiled. The gesture did not even attempt to reach his eyes. "But… everything is going to be ok," he continued, and it was clear from the faraway expression in his eyes that the words were not meant for her, but rather for himself. "Everything is going to be ok…"

And though Orihime knew she was not dumb, she suddenly felt it, because she could not understand for the life of her how things could have gone so terribly, terribly wrong.

--

--

When days turned to weeks and weeks to months, Rukia's heart twisted oddly when the first blossom budded bravely on a plumb branch. The cold had passed, the world continued to turn. The Winter War had never even truly come to pass and somehow, that left her feeling oddly bereft and resentful.

She had struggled for everything she had ever gotten in life. She had fought like a mangy, starved dog over every last meager scrap of power she had earned. Every sword trick was etched into her in a corresponding lacework of scars, and every step of footwork by a mangled ligament long since healed, but never quite forgotten.

Nothing had come easily for her, ever. But now, with vast resources beyond her wildest imagination idling at her fingertips, she realized that without that eternal struggle… life was empty. Boring.

When the last breaths of winter began to whisper hints of the turning season, Rukia began to split her time.

At first, she roved the real world, desperate and hungry for something more (_something harder, something to challenge her – something to defeat her_). But these days, the only hollows that came were weak, useless – barely worthy of her attention, much less her time. She dispatched of them ruthlessly, but found the accomplishment only left her more jaded in the end. The only purpose the hunt seemed to serve was to keep her away from the Kuchiki estates, conveniently missing his every trip to visit her.

(_His every trip to try and fix something that would forever be broken._)

Three weeks and four days after the last mound of snow had disappeared, she opened the gate to Hueco Mundo. It came as no great task to her, disappointingly enough. Over time the portal started to become as familiar (_and far more comforting_) as the way to Soul Society.

She spent her waking hours slaying Hollows at their source. And her other time… she spent within.

--

--

Time seemed to move quicker in her domain than in the real, even though in reality she knew the exact opposite was true.

As real-world weeks passed, Metastacia began to assimilate into Kaien's persona. It started with a slip of the tongue – a 'Kuchiki-sama', then a 'Kuchiki-san', and then, just 'Kuchiki.' Sometimes, he even called her 'Rukia' with a certain playful edge to his tone, and in a logical corner of her mind, Rukia realized he did it because he knew it secretly pleased her.

After two months, Rukia visited her inner world one day to be greeted not by Kaien's visage, but Miyako's. It unsettled her, at first, forcing her to remember that Metastacia was a Hollow, not a male or female, and most certainly not Kaien or his beloved wife. But those were trivial details, easily forgotten in the wash of familiar a smirk or a motherly tone.

Shirayuki remained silent at her side, not questioning when her mistress began to choose to spend more time in her inner world than the real one. Once, she tried to speak with her about it, but Rukia was was quick in meting out an unduly harsh response (_she realized later, when lying sleepless and alone on her thin futon in the Kuchiki manor_).

Shirayuki did not attempt to address the situation again. In point of fact, Shirayuki did not attempt to address _any_ situation much these days; the sword remained quiet, impassive as she idly watched Rukia come (_and stay, and stay, and stay_) with emotionless white irises.

Once when Rukia had come to her inner world, Shirayuki had been her white shadow – always at her right side, never straying but for a few feet. Now, she was the moon. She stayed on the high grounds, watching silently as Rukia's shadow became black, wearing a shihakushō and a familiar smile.

Perhaps the novelty of Rukia's visits had worn off. Or perhaps it was something else.

Whatever it was that kept Shirayuki atop the hill and Rukia alone with _him_, didn't really matter anymore. Rukia was adept at nothing if not assimilating into new situations, and as time passed, she learned to appreciate her new company (_cherish it, crave it, need it_). As time passed, Rukia began to forget things had ever been any other way.

--

--

It started with a slip of the tongue – at first he was "Hollow." Then, he was "Metastacia." For some time, she called him nothing, and there was something comforting about the anonymity between them.

Then, she called him Kaien-dono.

She froze, horrified that he might have heard – that her guilt might be multiplied through his witnessing. He had, of course, but said nothing, and that only expounded her shame. She lashed out, and stormed away back to Soul Society, but she was ever as empty there as she was in her own internal world. And at least in the internal world, there was no one there to give her such piteously fearful stares.

She went back to her own world, and they acted as if nothing had happened. The second time she called him Kaien-dono (_too soon, she had slipped too soon_), he said nothing – and this time, she didn't either.

The third time she called him Kaien-dono, she kissed him.

--

--

'_How many times have you called him Kaien-dono?_' she tried to accuse, but somehow the thought came as an idle musing instead, mind pleasantly hazy as their rocked hips rocked together in beautiful, perfect harmony. She might have actually tried to count, but then her head tilted back and she moaned his name again and again, and in her blissful stupor, she realized she had forever lost count and couldn't bring herself to care.

--

--

"There is another facet of Aaroniero's power that you have yet to touch." He spoke mildly, his attention seemingly fixated squarely on the steaming tea he was pouring rather than the words themselves. But despite the raptness of his soft brown eyes, Rukia easily heard the careful phrasing in the words, and knew they were not spoken flippantly.

She refused to ask; _refused_. She would not request to hear a single word about that loathsome espada. "Oh?" And yet all the same she was left resenting herself for prompting the information in so many roundabout ways.

If he sensed her misgiving – the way she loathed the mere thought of hearing anything about the espada, and yet desperately craved it just the same, he did nothing to indicate it. "Materialization," Metastacio replied conversationally. The teapot clicked delicately as he artfully set it back upon the table. "He could give physical form to any of the hollows within him."

"I see," Rukia replied cooly, and the quiet settled quite comfortably back over them as each was lost in a separate train of thought.

--

--

She told herself it would be reckless to have powers she knew nothing about. Who knows when she might enter a battle into which she might _need_ that power – and god forbid she enter one and accidentally unleash it. Having facets she knew nothing about was like having deadly weapons strewn carelessly about a dark room. Without having full knowledge of each one and her position in regards to it, they were far more dangerous than useful.

And so, Rukia told herself that she was learning this power simply for the sake of mastering it. Materialization was a means to an end. It was just another blade she was sharpening.

It wasn't as if she cared whether or not she could materialize him (_see his broad shoulders and confident smirk with Soul Society as his backdrop_). He just happened to be the one she was the most familiar with – the one who was most receptive (_eager, even?_) to the tentative experimenting.

When she first brought him from her inner world, she couldn't understand the tears rolling down her cheeks. But perhaps, by now, he understood her better than herself, and so to distract her from her guilt (_her pain – her relief?_), he drew his sword and goaded her (_with teasing and smirks and playful arrogance_) into practicing.

Though materialization exhausted her, and at first she was only able to maintain it for minutes at a time, these minutes easily became her most joyful ones, and soon, her life was dissected again:

Into time she was with him _there_, and time she was with him _here_.

--

--

Renji's reiatsu flooded her senses in an abrupt rush. It surprised her that he had managed to get so close as to already be on an overlooking cliff before she noticed him. Quickly, she waved her sword, and he-who-was-not-Kaien disappeared in a flourish of snow with a look of mixed surprise and irritation frozen on his face.

Renji cleared the distance between them in one weightless leap from the top of the expanse; it was only when he hit the ground and was _right there _that she suddenly felt self-conscious beneath his seeking mahogany gaze. "Why do you feel the need to call that… thing… to practice with?"

She hesitated, not wanting to answer because she didn't want to hear the answer herself. In the end, however, she settled with a comfortable half-truth. "He does not shrink away from me."

'_Like all living things should_,' her mind finished, and she winced. His eyes darkened when she said 'he' rather than 'it', and realizing her own folly, she looked away.

She didn't sense his approach, and had she been a lesser controlled person, she would have jumped when his hand touched her shoulder. "And I do?"

She meant to make some derisive reply highlighting the fact that he _had_, in fact, made himself quite scarce lately, but the words died in her throat because she knew they were unfair. Renji had been kept busy with the squandering farce that was the 'winter war' (more a lesser controlled dribble of adjuukara and left-over arrancar into the real world than a real _war_). On top of that, he was filling in more and more for Byakuya as his Captain's attention was taken up smoothing the wrinkles that Rukia's continued existence was creating within the Kuchiki estate.

And in spite of these distractions, he still managed to come around, though be it in short and infrequent bursts, flicking on and off her radar at the most unexpected of times. Like this one.

Rukia eyed him warily, and when she spoke, she was only relatively certain none of her apprehension shone through her tone. "You aren't afraid?"

"Of what?" Zabimaru was draped across his shoulders as he eyed her cockily, all pomp and mouth and show, as usual. "A shrimp like you?" He sounded surprised, though his wry smile belied the acting job.

Her return smile was grudging but genuine. She was relieved by the way he had somehow managed to slip back into their old ways. Of everyone, Renji probably had the most reason to act unsettled around her. Their relationship had been strained even before this. She had not even gone to him in Hueco Mundo before sending him away with Ichigo and Orihime and the others. He had had only their words to assure him she was alive for all those three days she had remained behind.

And yet out of everyone, he was the one able to revert back to better times.

"Paralyzed by your fear of me, Rukia?" he mocked boastingly, puffing up his chest and quirking his lips with that false pride. "And who could blame you? I am one of the most powerful shinigami in Soul Society. I even have bankai."

'_He likes to say that,_' an idle part of her mind noted, and she felt the stirrings of fond bemusement, so foreign in her chest. '_He never passes up on an opportunity to brag._'

The grudging in her smile was gone entirely. It took everything within her to keep from leaping on him and smothering him in hugs. "Then let us test this bankai of yours, Abarai Renji."

Their sparing was honest and hard, though in the back of her mind, Rukia realized she was holding back. She would force herself to only run when she knew she could fly; to slash when she knew she could cut.

She imagined Renji realized this too, though if he did he certainly allowed no reaction. For that, she was thankful.

--

--

It was only coincidental that a hollow entered the real world just as she was about to enter Hueco Mundo. She was mildly surprised, but it was a pleasant kind of surprise – like when you went looking for trouble, only to have it find you.

The hollow was giving chase to a living girl. Her reitsu flared in panicked shades of powder and cerulean blue as she ran, a tantalizing beacon unknowingly luring her attacker on. With a little luck, the shinigami posted to Karakura town would be more careful than she had been some time ago, and the child would be spared the world of the dead for at least the span of her meager life, unlike Ichigo.

Rukia swept in between the hollow and its prey as a gust of wind. It reared back, and her blade only chipped and sliced too-shallow across the bone mask – not killing, though certainly injuring. It reared its head and pierced the world with its hollow scream, and the girl shrieked in abject terror somewhere behind Rukia.

She smiled as she lunged, and this time Shirayuki did not falter – this time, the hollow did not scream.

It was only when the girl's continued wails reached her ears that she realized her sin: she had gone for the kill rather than the save. She had not been screaming from fear of the hollows wails; she had been screaming in terror of the other that had appeared suddenly behind them.

Rukia dreaded turning to look, but knew she had to just the same. And when she did, she knew she could no longer hide from her shame.

Once, she had nearly severed her arm, throwing herself bodily in the way of harm to save a foolish schoolboy and his family from a hollow. It wasn't the first time she had taken injury to protect another, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. No; the last time she would take injury to protect another was apparently when she took a trident to the gut on her way to rescue a dear friend.

The little girl's head was caved in. The second hollow had gotten her while Rukia had tousled with the first. She stood near her body, confused and wailing and clutching at the broken chain link protruding from her chest as if it was her safety blanket, and all this a bad dream.

Only it wasn't.

This time, it was Rukia's turn to scream; the second hollow never got the chance.

When the blood and the bone mask and the flesh faded, it took her a moment to realize she was no longer shinigami. She had no hilt with which to perform konso, and realizing she could not do even _this_ for the girl, Rukia fled.

Her legs didn't take her far before she staggered to her knees, clutching painfully at her gut as she heaved and retched. '_I killed her,_' she realized. Not with her sword, perhaps, but she may as well have. '_I could have saved her – I could have protected her, but I chose to kill first._'

She knew that the bloodlust that had driven her from the girl was not entirely her own, but her reverberated from the spot deep within her where _they _were – the Hollows she had absorbed, the monsters that fed her otherworldly power. She borrowed their strength, and she had thought she understood the price – but never once (_not once, she would swear on her own life – on the life of her nakama, on the life of… him_) had it ever occurred to her that they might affect her – distract her – stay her hand…

'_What have I become?_'

--

--

When Ichigo came hot on the tail of the disturbance he had felt, he was baffled to find no hollows when he got there, but instead a dead human child.

When the girl refused to be consoled, he decided to just hold her for a little while – offer her at least some little comfort before sending her on to the other side. Eventually, her babbling slowed to words he could make sense of, and gradually, she calmed and began to speak of what had happened.

"She must have been an angel. Mommy and daddy told me stories of God's helpers – and she was very pretty and dressed in white and was fighting the monster that was chasing me. But her hair was so black, and she fought so mean… and she scared me," she finished in a whisper. "Do you think maybe she – maybe she wasn't an angel?"

It was hard for him to speak around the sudden lump in his throat. "Maybe she – maybe she's an angel who just lost her way?" he offered.

The girl brightened instantly at the thought, unperturbed by his words and far more impressed by the fact that an adult had all-but-confirmed her own theory. "I saw an angel! Wait until I tell mommy and daddy! A real angel!" she cheered, and Ichigo only wished the heaviness in his heart would subside.

--

--

_I bequeth my sorrow and my regret to thee_

_Cannot cross so wide a sea_

--

--

**Author's Notes:** Gahhh, started losing my steam on this one. I'm trying really hard to finish it for you guys. Your support and encouragement is appreciated, as well as your criticism and critiques.

I pushed hard to get this one done as a Christmas gift for you all – hope you like it! Of course your reviews would be a welcome return Christmas gift!

Standard nod, glomps, and all-around thanks to Kilonji for beta-ing for me. Go read her stuff and give her some reviews too, eh? She's sugoi!


	5. To Descend

**In which peering into the darkness allows the darkness to peer back into her.**

--

--

_So serene breeds my darkness_

--

--

For the first time since that night fifty years gone when she slew her mentor, Rukia was bloodstained when she entered her inner world.

It was hot and sticky – cloying, the coppery scent too thick in the air and choking at her chest and nostrils. The wind in her face was bitterly cold; the howling wind echoed of a little girl's wails. A little girl who would never again draw the breath to cry aloud; who would never again have the chance to walk and laugh and smile and live her life like all humans should. They were meant to be protected from these things –

Who could have ever known the child would have needed protecting from _her_?

She was hyperventilating, she realized – _this_ time, alone. Shirayuki's cool fingers were not upon her face, and her icy breath was not whispering soft words of comfort in her ear. Once, Shirayuki spun a layer of cold, perfect glass over her, so as to preserve her and prevent her from breaking. But this time there would be no happy ending.

'_Why won't it come off?_' Viciously tearing off a sleeve, Rukia rubbed and rubbed until her own blood rose to her battered hands, and still she was not clean. Bright vermillion had marked her – permeated her – soiled her, and she needed desperately to be clean. '_Why won't it come off?_' she hissed, mind clear of everything but panic and guilt and shame. It was burning her. She was a coward, a traitor, and a murderer and yet all she could think of was the mark it left upon her…

Branded, for all to see and know what she had become… (_or had she truly been this way all along?_)

"Shhh, Rukia …" Cool hands pressed to her cheeks – large, calloused fingers tracing the line of her jawbone as a black shock of unruly hair peeked into the corner of her vision. He knelt behind her, leaning his body into her, pressed his nose into her ear and tried to whisper sweet nothings that she wanted desperately to hear, even knowing she could never believe (_what a beautiful, ugly obsession, these warped ties between them – that he should know – that he should come to her, like this_).

But he was bloodstained too, and suddenly, she could not bear it.

"_Don't touch me!_" she shrieked, and when she stumbled forward to whirl and face him, he was too surprised to follow. His eyes were wide with innocence and shock. But he deserved neither, and suddenly, Rukia hated him more than anything else, even herself. She wanted nothing more than to hurt him – twist him. Destroy him.

(_And in doing so – perhaps in hurting him – she might –_)

"You are not Kaien-dono," she hissed, and she knew the words hurt them both – not because they were lies, but because they were _true_. "You are not Miyako-dono. You have no heart or soul, and not even their stolen faces can mask that eternal shame!"

He stiffened, but she told herself she felt no strange twang in her chest when his eyes flashed with hurt. She _felt nothing_. He was a Hollow, nothing more – pride and feeling and concern over him was too much. These were things too good for him – too good for such a filthy, despicable beast. He deserved not even scorn, as that was too much effort to be wasted on such a vast nothingness.

(_These things were too good for her as well, but they festered and spoiled inside her regardless._)

He deserved even less than she, and all she deserved was pain and agony for being the kinslayer she was. She had severed ties with Renji, the only true friend who had survived long enough to see her descent. She had killed the true Kaien, the only man who had taken an interest in helping her overcome her shortcomings. She had taken away the chance at a normal life from Ichigo, a human she was sworn to protect, and now, she had even stole the breath from a child. A _child_.

And if she was blood-cursed, then what was he, a hollow creature who had known nothing _except_ kill and maim and gorge and serve only his own ends? He should not feign injustice or concern at her words, because he, like her, should realize the truth: he deserved this punishment. They both did.

(_And perhaps… perhaps if she could make him understand that… Perhaps they could fall together, rather than she descend alone into a darkness where he already awaited… Perhaps she could save him from something. And in doing so, save herself._)

If he could not feel these things for himself… then gods help her, she would bring them to him. He would know her shame. He would know her pain. He would know _her_.

(_He was already damned, and he did not even know to lament it. How could one grieve their depravity, when they've known nothing else? But if she was to be damned, then by the gods, he needed to be something more so he could share in her eternal despair._)

And yet, even as she prepared to drag him down with her – prepared to make him hurt, and weep and cry and _understand, _the weight of his gaze stole the breath from her. He simply stood there, staring, waiting…

Accepting.

Something twisted and cracked within her. (_But wouldn't she be saving him? In knowing his sin – knowing his errs – might he also strive for something greater? The pain and the regret – he _needed_ that punishment, to purify himself –_)

She could not do it.

"_Be gone!_" she shrieked, and it was her soul breaking, not her voice. When she opened her eyes again, her cheeks were stinging with cold tears, and she was finally as she was meant to be all along:

_Alone._

--

--

She had thought she was a broken thing, but it was not until three weeks later when she truly, irrevocably broke.

'_I won't go back,_' she told herself, and for the first time in months, she forwent her internal world. But time passed as nails on a chalkboard, and on the morning of the twenty-first day she found herself kneeling in stony silence across from Byakuya, staring disinterestedly at the ornate breakfast laid out between them. The display of delicacies was clearly designed to entice her to eat – Byakuya was, against all odds, a man of simple tastes when it came to nourishment.

It was a shame the servants' painstaking efforts would go for naught. The thought of eating only turned her stomach, and Rukia had no desire nor need for the nourishment. In the stonily awkward silence, she suddenly realized what a ridiculous farce the entire ordeal was.

When was the last time she had eaten, in this world? (_When was the last time she had cared to?_)

Byakuya's eyes – though cold and guarded as ever – seemed to leak just a hint of concern now and again, but the sensation was not pleasant to her. His mild gray irises burned her. His watchful gaze angered her (_shamed her_), but it was not until he spoke that she realized perhaps the concern was meant less as a reproach and more as a plea.

"It is pleasant, to be in this way again." (_It is pleasant, for you to partake in this world again._) He did not murmur it – Byakuya would never be uncertain in words of his own design, or anyone else's for that matter. He spoke loud and clear, as if daring her to challenge the sentiment.

He watched her carefully, waiting for some reaction – some indication that she had even heard him. When none came, he carefully finished. "You should eat."

'_Or you will waste away, Rukia,_' her mind supplemented in snide overtures. (_But if only that were true._) To have the world of the living (_this place she was no longer a part of – this place she no longer _deserved_ to be a part of_) fade away…

It was only a stroke of fortune that Ichigo managed to show up as the servants scurried this way and that with the mostly untouched remnants of breakfast. She jerked in surprise when he just _appeared_, and couldn't stop herself from looking accusingly at Byakuya. Why had there been no ruckus of shouts and challenges outside – how had he slipped past the guards and into the mansion with nary a warning?

The older Kuichiki only sipped his tea mildly, as if Ichigo's presence was a normal thing. "He sometimes visits," the captain finally spoke, confirming just that. A rush of panic (_annoyance?_) swelled in her chest, but Rukia forced herself to remain calm and unruffled.

"I cannot imagine what you two could possibly have to speak of," she replied mildly. The tea was of fine quality, she knew, but it tasted unnaturally bitter in her mouth. Suddenly, she felt an overwhelming pang for that stuff from her inner world…

Byakuya was already on his feet moving with graceful listlessness towards the door by the time her soft retort reached him. He paused, looking thoughtfully over his shoulder. "He visits _you_," he said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world, and then he was gone.

Ichigo slid onto Byakuya's abandoned cushion across from her and grunted a quiet, "I can't stay long," as easily as if he did it every day. As if she hadn't said such harsh parting words the last time they had met. As if she hadn't fled to Hueco Mundo in her unending thirst for something substantive every time she thought she felt the flicker of him entering Soul Society. As if –

_Nothing had changed._

The irrational surge of emotion returned again. She knew she could only drag him down, and she had tried to warn him off, and yet here he was –

Amber eyes were boring into her, and in a corner of her mind, she noted that they flickered back and forth in a teetering battle of being guarded and not – of judging or accepting. And in that same corner of her mind, she realized that were those eyes a few shades different (_not amber, but blue_) – a little more cheerful, veiled under hair a little less bright (_not orange, but black_) – that she would have felt more comfortable. And she hated that realization.

He opened his mouth to speak, but she felt the need to interrupt. "Shouldn't you be at school?" she snapped, and immediately kicked herself for such an inane observation. Things were not normal – things would _never_ be normal again, and to slip back into such petty little arguments would be alluding at such a façade.

He rubbed the back of his head, his brief smile uncertain. The fluttering in her stomach was from agitation (_and most certainly not endearment_).

"It's exams this week. We test in the morning, and get out early to study."

'_Run away from me, Ichigo,_' she begged inside – she needed to tell him –and yet when she spoke, the words that came were only a half-snappish, "Then shouldn't you be studying?"

Something shifted in his gaze, and the fluttering became an unbearable ache. "Why are you acting like this? Aren't you even a little bit happy to see me?"

Something inside of her fell. She wanted to weep and cry and throw her arms around him – to scream and shout and kick at him. She wanted to do _anything_ except what she had to.

Her hands tightened on the teacup; she shifted her gaze away. "Was there a misunderstanding between us the last time we spoke?"

She waited to hear him rise to his feet and flee – or to leap up and lean over the low table and shout at her. Instead, he chuckled, unsettling her. "Was there a misunderstanding between us when I told you _all your opinions are rejected?_"

She laughed, and then choked on the sound because it felt so foreign bubbling up from her chest. From the corner of her eye, she could see him smiling warmly, and she felt desperate. '_Make him go – make him get away, before I suck him in –_'

But as hard as she tried, the harsh words and indignation and anger simply would not come, and when he finally did rise to his feet (_slowly, calmly, and completely of his own accord_), she hated the way that panic welled in her chest yet again, twisting this time in a way completely unlike the first.

"There'll be a little ceremony next week; the school year is ending. I mean, we aren't seniors or anything, but… well… there'll be some parties and get-togethers and stuff. Some of the others have been wondering where you're at." It was a roundabout invitation, as such things always were with Ichigo, and she twisted uncomfortably in place when he paused for a moment longer –

_Just to look at her –_

(_Could he see it inside her?_)

It was only after he left that the heavy, suffocating silence of the mansion settled over her for the first time. She told herself that her insides were twisting and stirring wildly because of her disappointment in herself for not doing what she should have done (_most certainly not out of longing for his presence, gone for but a few hours_). Later, wildly, she even fingered him in accusation – if he had even a whit of concern for her, why would he come and then just as easily leave her alone?

True, she wanted them gone… she _needed_ them gone, away, to give her space to flex her razor wings and protect them from herself – but did that really mean they needed to leave her alone? (_Alone, alone, was that truly what she wanted? Certainly it was what she needed, but the mere thought of now drove her near mad with desperation._)

That evening – after twenty one stolid days of exile from her inner world, from the terrible things she housed within her – from the terrible thing she was becoming – she slid shut the door to her chambers and left Seireitei for the first time since the last. In doing so, that thing inside her that had been only twisted before now broke – and in going back to him, she acknowledged herself as a broken thing.

She was drawn to him like a magnet – she did not even feel the proper shame for crawling back to him, eyes woeful and heart screaming for forgiveness she did not want, but needed more than air in her lungs. She had spoken the truth – by the gods, she _knew_ it was the truth – and she had meant only to speak more, only to hurt him and make him realize his shame – and yet, she could not bring herself to care.

He wore Kaien's face, today, but was uncharacteristically melancholy. It unsettled her unduly to see him slip from character, but she did not wish to examine why.

They sat across from each other, cross-legged and stiff backed with the low cherry-wood table between them. The tea artfully laid out on the table steamed, though the air wasn't particularly cool.

He was silent, contemplative for some time, and so she did not speak. Rather, she listened, and damn if she didn't sit perched at the edge of her seat, as desperate for his words as his touch.

"I am Metastacia, who absorbed the shinigami Kaien and Miyako among many others," he finally began, and the words stung like a blade beneath the ribs, though she could not imagine why.

"Yes," she replied, and wondered why the tea scalded at her tongue and throat even in this, a domain crafted entirely to her whim. Surely that was the reason her voice sounded so hoarse.

"Their memories and abilities are as my memories and abilities." He paused, but he was not waiting for an answer. He leaned forward, voice filled with anxiousness and passion and insistence and all the things a Hollow's voice should not. "Rukia-sama... what makes our heart and soul truly ours?"

She stilled; waited. He continued.

"What makes our heart and soul truly ours, if not our memories and abilities?" he tried again. The profoundness of the question came seconds later, like an overwhelming wave, pulling her under – pleasantly drowning her in the velvet soft embrace of asphyxiation.

Staring fixatedly at the prim expanse of table between them and her white-knuckled hands lying upon it, Rukia realized she did not have an answer.

--

--

That night, she dreamt of the day she sparred with Renji. Only in her dream, she did not hold back. She did not run when she could fly; she did not slash when she could cut. She drove Shirayuki into his chest and carved out his heart in slow, measured motions; she felt only glee and relief when his eyes faded and rolled into the back of his head.

The dream was not hers. Of that, she was certain. She did not dream anymore – not once in all the long months since her death (_she no longer thought of it as her rebirth… to do so felt like a betrayal, somehow_). But just the same, her answers lay within – here – and she would have them one way or another. "Why did I dream of hurting Renji?"

Surprisingly, her companion did not even make an attempt at ambiguity. "Because he loves you," he-who-was-not-Kaien replied without hesitation. When she only continued to stare at him blankly, he continued without prompting.

"You _are_ this realm. You are the breeze that cools us, the sun that warms us. You have delivered us from our blind nightmares, and given us back hope. Every second you spend elsewhere is agony. Can you blame us, for lashing out when you bestow your favor on another?"

The jealous sentiments made something twist oddly in her gut, and the kink was both pleasure and pain. Almost (_but not quite_) uncomfortable, Rukia shifted her gaze from him. "So you can now see what I do beyond this place?" Once, she could come and go as she pleased, and the worlds were distinct – separate. She could at least pretend.

Gravely serious, he dipped his head in affirmation. "You are the fabric of our dreams, flitting restlessly behind our eyes as we have that which we thought was lost to us forever returned one stitch at a time. Our humanity, Rukia."

'_So they can not only influence me during battle, but now they are aware of what I am doing in Soul Society and the real world as well?_' She would always be left wondering, now. How much of what she said or did was her, and how much was _them_, bleeding through?

(_How long would it be, before they could influence her at any time? How long until their jealous wrath shifted more solidly to the living souls she still cared for? And how long would it be before they used the two in tandem?_)

Bitterly, she averted her gaze. "At the cost of my own?"

"What is there to mourn, if you transcend humanity? Shirayuki was once a blade who led as unsung an existence as you. Look now! She is our undisputed queen. She reigns over this realm as our warlord, when necessary; as an angel of mercy or vengeance in turn." He paused, gaze locking with hers meaningfully. "And while Shirayuki is our queen, you, Rukia-sama… you are our _god._"

She wanted to be repulsed and reject his words – she honestly did. But the feelings wouldn't come, no matter how hard she searched for them. "He could never love you as we do," Kaien finished meaningfully. "No one could."

She believed him, and she somehow felt relief at his words. And for that, she realized, she was truly unforgivable.

--

--

"They would have killed you?" he-who-was-not-Kaien asked offhandedly; the steam rising from the cup hid his face from her. The question was deceptively neutral; her mind became a blur of excuses. "Even your nakama?"

"With Renji, it was… a misunderstanding. And Nii-sama… he had his reasons –"

"What reasons matter more than your heart-family?"

'_None,_' her mind instantly supplied. To cover the impulse-reaction, she sipped delicately before speaking. "You would not understand."

"And I hope I never will," he responded easily.

'_None could love you more than us,_' he promised over and over again. '_We would never leave you, even if we could. We are a part of you, and you of us…_'

These were not the meaningless, flippant words of 'undying' love spouted in silly mangas and tawdry romance stuff. It was something dark and needy – possessive and as ingrained into her and into him in a very real sense. She was not Hollow. She had become something different than Arrancar and Vizard, which were variations on Hollow. She had become something more – whereas Hollow fed upon human souls, absorbing them and morphing them into themselves, she had become something that fed upon Hollow souls. And each day that passed, they were mingling further into her, interweaving to the point where it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended.

He could have been just a faceless source of power (_should have been, oh gods, he should have been!_) – as Hollows simply sucked dry the souls they absorbed, she should have sucked him dry, and tossed him aside as a dried husk. But it was too late now, and he had a face, and he had a body, and he had _her_ –

'_We are a part of you, and you of us…_' The words came more singsong – a habitual, grunting promise, as he flipped his hips and she did the same. It was true, and when they joined together in a muss of sweat and moans and cries, she wept in both joy and anguish, because she _knew_ it was true.

'_None could love you more than us,_' he promised, and when she laid in his arms at night, stifling her moans as though anyone could hear them here, she began to believe.

But belief and resentment came as twin sides of the same coin, for others had spoken these words _love_ and _family_ and somehow fallen short of that offered by one who was hollow. But… perhaps it took a void inside to reach one just the same…

That night, spent and sore and exhausted in the most pleasant way, she dreamt of Ichigo.

Dying.

And this time, she realized with sorrow, the dream was just as much hers as the Hollow's.

--

--

"Oi! Rukia!"

His voice was an excruciatingly wonderful jolt of electricity tickling through her body, as it ever had been. She stiffened, freezing for just a heartbeat to savor him, though she knew she shouldn't.

"Oi! _Rukia_!" he called again, a little more out of breath and more agitated this time, and damn if he hadn't improved his shunpo yet again. She realized her mistake, but the realization came too late. She had dawdled too long, she knew, when she felt his rough grip tight around her arm.

She would not look directly at him, though from the corner of her eye she could see that his amber gaze was filled with all the eager hopefulness of a puppy-dog. "We graduated last week. The others were asking where you were. We sorta thought you'd come, y'know?"

The real words were easy to hear between those spoken. '_I _sorta thought you'd come.'

"I was otherwise occupied," she offered with shallow crispness. 'I owe you nothing,' the unspoken words echoed more loudly than the audible ones. She forced herself not to share his flinch, and certainly not to echo the sudden hurt in his gaze.

She jerked her arm from his grip, and felt disappointed when he didn't lunge for her again. Immediately, she chastised herself for her foolishness.

'_Protect him, Rukia,_' her mind commanded, and it was an order she could not refuse (_had never been able to refuse – would never be able to refuse_). "The war is over. Soul Society has little need for your services any longer," she announced, the words as empty as she was. "And neither do I."

"RUKIA!" He was furious with her – he was moving to grab her, but she was no longer the weak little shinigami he had once known. His face angled towards hers, and absently, she realized he was going to kiss her. But instead of the cool flesh of her lips, he was met with the cool bite of Shirayuki, unsheathed and pressed to his throat in an instant.

He froze, and the betrayed look in his eyes was the mark of her success. Absently, she wondered if when he looked at her now, if he could separate her from the sin.

She hoped not. "This is the end of this unconventional bond between us. Our meeting was a fluke. Our acquaintance was a mistake. And all mistakes must be eventually be corrected."

'_Protect him… from yourself._'

--

--

_Leaving vitality_

_Entreating winterwinds_

--

--

**Author's Notes:** Huge thanks to Kilonji, my awesome beta (and an amazing writer to boot). And for those of you who haven't noticed, an _amazing_ artist did an art piece dedicated to this story! Check out I will make you cold and tempered steel by denebtenoh on DeviantArt (mature filter turned on for blood, so you'll need to log in). She's great, and having someone do an unsolicited piece based on something I wrote has been a lifelong goal of mine. So this update is dedicated to you, denebtenoh!

Feedback appreciated. (If everyone who has faved this story would review just once, the total reviews would almost double! Come on guys, make me a happy Melitza-san!) Was going to split this chapter into two, but then I thought of all you guys who wrote such good reviews and asked updating, so I kept it together for you, Vorani and Pepprie and Mitsukai and Jaderent and mojo and everyone else!


	6. To Embrace It

**In which she embraces her darkness and becomes one with her sin.**

_Warning: Violence, language, and some citrus._

--

--

_Descending me like flakes of snow_

_I embrace the cold_

--

--

There was, of course, a struggle, both physically and emotionally. Ichigo had always made her listen forcibly before – grabbing her by the arm and shouting in her face until she heard him – until she understood what he was trying to get across to her. She was older and wiser; but he was younger and brasher, and when he had physical force on his side, he stood a chance of making her see.

Now, all he had was his tenacity. When she slipped beyond even that – when she danced just beyond his grasping fingertips and threatened him with scorn as sharp as her blade (_or perhaps it was the other way around?_), what more could he do than step back – to shout and curse and stomp his feet?

And then, all she had left was her wisdom and the tears she would never shed.

He did not give up. He would never give up, she realized, belatedly, after weeks and dozens of attempts to get back through to her failed. Byakuya's house servants barely batted an eye at him now, and even when she left Soul Society to battle in Heuco Mundo everytime she felt him near, she now found him sitting impatiently in the manor upon her return.

'_I will not back down,_' his eyes said. '_I will not give up on you!_' When a few harsh words and a frown of disapproval was no longer enough to send him fleeing, she finally realized that he wasn't going to give up _(something she should have realized all along_), and because of that, she knew it was time for things to change.

_Time for things to end._

For the first time since she had refused to die, Rukia wondered if it was too late to do just that.

--

--

This time, when she heard the twin shrieks of two hollows ravaging in living world, Rukia cocked her head to the side and thought, '_Why not?_'

She swung her sword in a wide arc, and in the flurry of pristine powder and white and snow, a shadow emerged, and she smiled fondly as he stepped forward and straightened, squared his shoulders, twisted his lips in a cocky grin that was both achingly familiar and not. There was something _different_ about the way he smiled at her these days, she had realized, but she could not quite place her finger upon it; she did not have the time to.

"Kaien," she greeted, and she no longer winced when she said it. What else was she to call him? He was not Aaroniero – and nor was he really Metastacia anymore. He was not Kaien-dono, either, she knew, but she left off the 'dono' and pretended that made a difference.

It was a borrowed face. Why not borrow the name as well?

His head was cocked in askance, and he was just opening his mouth to ask why she had summoned him when, as if summoned, another hollow's shriek tore between them. His mouth snapped shut again and he nodded. She wondered why she felt an odd twist in her stomach at the sudden muted expression on his face.

"Your wish," he said simply. '_Is my command,_' lies unspoken, because it would have been too cheesily romantic spoken aloud. With a perfunctionary bow, he leapt into action, and then they were flying.

'_The thrill of the hunt,_' Renji had once said, and she had only scoffed. There was no _thrill_ to be had, she had argued – and there hadn't been, for her. She was weak, and the weakness perpetuated itself as fear in her heart. She did not want to die. She did not want her companions to die. She executed what she had to efficiently, but it was not her joy.

Now, for the first time in her life, she thought she might understand.

They descend so quickly that the hollows hadn't even a chance to sense them first. It was less a fight than a slaughter, and yet she could not bring herself to care. They were loathsome things, bringing them to hell a guiltless therapy. It might not bleach her soul again, but it at least painted her in lighter shades of gray.

He twirled Nejibana in his hands as if she was forged for him. His high stance perfectly complemented her low, and he dodged out as she dodged in; he weaved left as she weaved right. Their reiatsus' flare, his a part of hers but somehow separate, somehow bolstering her – his presese a flicker of excitement in the pit of her, another sword in her separate hand, and in that moment, they _fit_, and everything was _right_.

But then one hollow shrieked, and there was black, black blood splashing over her, weighing her down in soggy filth. As her quarry dissipated, he leapt over her shoulder and slammed Nejibana down on the second's mask, and then it was over. She was surprised that she felt disappointed for their dance to have been cut so short.

There was an awkward moment as he hovered before her, and the hollows dissipated back to nothing, leaving no more reason for him to be here. He turned back to her and bowed at the waist. She liked to think he looked a little disappointed as well.

He meant to fade back to the inner world again, as he always did after they were done practicing, after she was done using him as her weapon. This was the first time she called him in the real world, but there was no reason for him to think it would be any different here than in Soul Society or Heuco Mundo…

(_There was no reason for things to be any different… but then, she had stopped caring about reason months ago, hadn't she?_)

He was just about to fade when she spoke; her voice uncharacteristically hoarse, even in her own ears, and she would have winced if anyone else was to hear it. But somehow, it didn't bother her that _he_ did.

"Would you give me company for awhile?" She wondered if the words sounded as needy as she felt. She didn't even realize she had reached for him until she felt the muscles of his forearm twitching beneath her fingers.

He was frozen; very carefully, neither of them looked to her hand. "I would give you anything," he replied. The honesty in his voice tickled a painfully sweet ache inside her.

"Then stay."

His breath caught oddly in his throat, but it had nothing to do with exertion. Their eyes caught and held, and that tickle inside was almost unbearable.

"I would stay for as long as you would have me," he vowed, and then her other hand was burying itself in his hakama, dragging his face down to her level, and she was pressing her lips over his.

The moment might have been too sweet, if it weren't for that overlying tang of copper and salt and slimy black stuff staining her. Suddenly disgusted, she shoved him back, and wiped frantically at her face with the back of her hand.

"Goddamnit," she hissed, only now remembering the hollows' blood covering her. There was none on him except that smeared on his lips from hers, she noted, and it only made sense. He had killed his hollow with a clean slice to the mask; she was ever more vicious, and had found it necessary to skewer hers in two first.

The sticky stuff only smeared under her cuff and she scrubbed harder for a moment, frustrated, when he caught her wrist.

"Please," he whispered hoarsely; he was leaning over her, and she delighted in the way his form was solid – in the way he blocked the sunlight from touching her porcelain skin. It was so metaphorical – so fitting, it was almost painful…

"Please," he whispered again, his breath warm on her face, "Allow me."

His tongue was scalding, trailing so slowly over her cheek. And even though he was licking up blood, she could not bring herself to feel disgusted by it.

Something coiled and wound within her; she shuddered and smothered strange whining noises in her throat. They had done this in her mind's realm, but never anywhere else – something about it being _here_, in the human world, made it that much more sinful.

And she wanted more. She wanted to immerse herself in that sin – paint herself with it, bathe in it… become one with it.

She yanked his hand that was holding her wrist down, hooking it beneath her knee as she wound her leg around his slender hip and crashed into him. She wound her other hand into his dark locks and slanted his mouth down for her to cover with her own. He opened it without her even asking, and this time, she did not flinch away from the taste of copper and salt and blood, but rather sought it out – sucked it greedily off his tongue, and when there was not enough there, bit viciously into his lip and tore so that they might fill their mouths with more.

Blood. Sin. This was their flavor. It was only right.

She pressed harder; he stumbled back a bit, and his feet caught up with hers, and they both crashed hard to the ground. A rock bit deeply into her knee, though she scarcely felt the tearing skin; if he was hurt, nothing in the eagerness of his mouth gave it away.

Her hands were inside his hakama, pushing and tugging and yanking. When his obi caught and hindered her advances, she growled and tore viciously at it –

He chuckled then, and were he anyone else, she thought she might have bristled at the way he so calmly placed his hands over hers and guided them through the intricate knot at his waist. But he was not anyone else. And though she bit off the –dono at the end of his name, it somehow felt right that he was teaching her yet still.

But then she slid down him, and her mouth was laving down his chest, worshiping in the peaks and valleys of taut muscle. His skin was smooth porcelain, warm in spite of his lack of true life, but even if it was false it was _hers _– all of it, _hers_, and only hers, and she knew that no other had seen him this way, touched him this way. Slow, hot, open mouthed kisses, lower, to his stomach, and his knowing warm chuckle became a dark, needy gasp, and she wanted to laugh and laugh and (_cry_).

She noted only absently that she had left a trail of crimson down his chest, when she peeked up with curious eyes to watch the way he sweated and panted and flushed as she laved her mouth over him. They hadn't done it this way in her mind, and absently, she wondered if this will count as losing her virginity. True, they were in the real world – but he was already a part of her, and everything else aside from that was so shallow and pale by comparison.

She was desperate and almost angry in her minstrations; he was just the same in the way he tensed and held back from bucking into her as she took him into her mouth and worshipped (_punished_) him with her mouth.

It was the wrong place and the wrong time and the wrong person – but if everything was so goddamn wrong, why did it feel so _right_?

She whined again in the back of her throat, and told herself the stinging in her eyes was from the discomfort as he lost control for a moment, his hips jerking abruptly and unbalancing her perfect desperate rhythm. She only sucked harder then, and raked teeth, hoping to bring tears from him to match her own.

She pulled back when she was short of breath, and it seemed only a formality when he took her by the shoulders and guided her softy (so softly, so gently, worshipping) onto her back, and parted her knees with such loving guidance, and pressed into her with slow, talented fingers, and knelt between her legs and licked and sucked and laved with patient tongue until something inside her snapped, and the world erupted into only fireworks and the warmth pooling in her belly.

And when he was above her, and she was looking over his shoulder into the sky and gasping for breath for the first time since she had died, as their hips rocked together patiently and frantically and softly and roughly in turn, she wondered when they had fit together better: when they were fighting or when they were fucking.

--

--

She was one with her darkness now, she realized, and wondered if that wasn't as she was meant to be all along.

--

--

On the third day of the seventh week into summer, her portal into Soul Society was blocked by a surprise (if not unexpected) visitor. She darkened immediately upon seeing him; her clothes were still stained in sticky, cool Hollow's blood, and she wanted nothing more than to scrub it off so she might more quickly enter her meditations.

The hollow's blood on her cloaks did not bother her so much as the fact that her skin beneath was tell-tale clean. Her thighs were sticky and warm with something else entirely, and when she faced him, it was hard to stand tall and proud and not blush guiltily in the cheeks. She wondered if she was marked anywhere where he might see.

Secretly, she hoped she was.

"How pleasant of you to greet me at the front gates, Yama-gii," she cooed, the pet-name ringing with a cryptic mocking she once never would have dared taken with the first commander and General of all of Soul Society. "Have you finally come to finish that which you failed to so long ago?"

If she expected a rise from him, his unwavering even stare denied her of it. Absently, she wondered if she had lost her touch with derisive tones, of if rather he had been born without a sense to appreciate such baiting.

A long moment passed before he sighed. "You know the verdict sentencing you to death that time was by Aizen's crafting, Kuchiki. That was not Soul Society's justice." For some reason, his answer was bitterly disappointing to her. His voice was an ominous thunder rolling in the distance; gravelling and low, though now ringing more of weariness than warning. The old man towered over her in height, and yet somehow, it was Rukia looking down at him this time.

Slowly, forgetting for now the way her thighs twinged, still barely alight with the after effects of arousal, she paced a wide circle around him, her hand resting too casually on Shirayuki's hilt. Yamamoto, however, made no motion to move his hands from his gnarled cane and assume a defensive position. Instead, he watched her with all the worn sageness of one who had seen it all.

His confidence disgusted her; ignited something stifling deep within her that she didn't fully comprehend. "The apology note must have been lost in transition," she finally goaded, when she realized his lame apology was all that was forthcoming. "I'm sure it was quite thoughtfully crafted."

She expected him to fold. She expected either apologetic words of defeat, or angry ones of admonishment. Instead, she got neither. "Is it an apology you wish?" he sighed, and for the first time she cared to recall, Yamamoto sounded _tired _– tired in the kind of way that transcended the physical, and dipped into something else entirely.

Rukia stopped in her predatory pacing. She felt robbed of something, and irritated by that, she frowned. "What use would I have with your hollow words?"

His reply was quick – too quick, cutting to her core. "Perhaps you could tell me. You seem to find use for hollow things, these days…"

She narrowed her eyes. "I'm shock full of them, old man. But to get to them, you must first kill me." '_They are my nakama now – look at me, filthy, dirty, only made full by consuming that which is more hollow than myself. Kill me, Yamamoto-taicho, I conspire with them._' She didn't expect the sudden surge of self-hatred – the sudden spark of hope that perhaps he, the most powerful of them all, could kill her. It surprised her; she had forgotten what hope felt like.

If he heard her sudden desperate burst of desire, he certainly gave no indication. "The mobile corps informs me that you only leave Soul Society for the purpose of slaying hollows. You are not shinigami… but you are not an enemy. I will not attack you."

She wanted to scream at him for his audacity. '_I am lower than our mortal enemy, Yamamoto-taicho – can you not see? At least _they_ strive to drag down something above them. I… I drag even the damned down to sully them with my stains._'

"Did the mobile corps also tell you that I kill little girls?" Rukia bit out, and the words were like salt poured in her rawest wounds. She rubbed it in deeper, viciously reveling in the way it ached and throbbed. She deserved that pain. Needed it. "Did they tell you how taking life has more meaning to me now than saving it?"

Yamamoto had somehow become steel even without sacrifice as great as hers; not even his eyes faltered as he stared with cool indifference. If her words came as any news to him, she would have been greatly surprised. "And how is that any different than a member of the eleventh?" he prodded, gently, as if guiding a student to the right answer.

She was not his student. He did not deserve to speak to her as if she was something worthy of guidance.

She choked. "They have souls…"

He closed his eyes, and his sigh was once again that distant rumbling thunder, so weary. "The authority to judge you is not mine, Kuchiki Rukia. The jurisdiction will no longer come from the Central 46, but this time, from God's Realm itself. And should there be executioners, they will not be shinigami… but something above."

"Above even me?" she whispered, and wanted to believe more than she had wanted to believe in anything before. She hated this – hated being something above all others, when her life had always been spent looking up and straining to get there. She was tired – so very tired, with only her shame and the thousands of monsters within her to share it.

She was _tired_.

Yamamoto did not reply, and so, after the silence stretched on to the point of discomfort, she wheeled her gaze back on him, her voice sardonic once again. "You came here to warn me – why?"

"To give you time to make your peace," he replied, and there was nothing left between them to say. He turned to depart and she watched him go – watched until he turned around a corner, and for a full mark after even that.

"Peace is not meant for the living-dead, Yamamoto-taicho," she finally replied. "They do not deserve it." And though she had only just come back to Soul Society, she immediately turned around and opened back up the gate to the living world.

--

--

**Author's Notes:** Thanks to Kilonji for beta-work (and wonderfully inspiring fanfics) and to denebtenoh for the artwork inspired by this story (links on my profile). Two, maybe three more chapters, depending on reviews (and I actually mean it on the numbers this time!).

Your reviews will be kept on my shrine of eternal gratitute; threats will be printed and kept close to my heart.


	7. To Interlude

**In which she sets the stage.**

_Warning: Some citrus._

--

--

Soul Society was comprised of spirit particles. The miniscule particles of energy helped sustain a shinigami – had once helped her regain her powers much quicker after being stripped of everything by Ichigo and the tower of penitance. Though she was no longer shinigami, the spirit particles still bolstered her. She still fed on them, was energized by them…

Not as much as by absorbing hollows, however. While Soul Society provided trickles of power here and there, each time she defeated a hollow and absorbed it was a torrent of insane, rushing energy.

One world was a constant trickle of strength; the other was sporatic torrends of unimaginable power. In the worlds of light or dark, she glimmered as an untouchable thing in various shades of invincibility. Heuco Mundo was her strength. Soul Society was her strength.

That was why she chose the real world as her new shrine of penitance.

--

--

The next time she calls him out, there are no hollows. He does not question for even a moment when she beckons him to her with a crooked finger, a knotted stomach, and something strange in her eye.

"Rukia-sama," he whispers, loving, as his mouth traces lines of delicate kisses along her jaw, lower, down her neck.

Sometimes she wants to hear him worship her like that. But not today. Today, she wants to pretend – today, instead of reveling in the darkness, she wants to pretend she is in the light, if only for a moment.

"Rukia-sama," he breathes, and she winces at the last two syllables. When he opens his mouth to say it again, she groans and shudders and mauls her mouth over his, lips and tongues tangling and fighting for dominance. They stay like that for some time, even as they fall to the ground and tangle and grasp and tug. But when she pulls away, he sighs again,

"Rukia-sa –"

"Just Rukia," she groans; pants, as she rolls her hips urgently over his. "No honorifics; just Rukia."

Because that is what _he_ would call her.

Maybe then he understands the strange sharpness to her gaze; the rough urgency to the way she marks him with vicious bites and claws at him. The way she goads him to be aggressive, rather than tender.

She sees the brief flash of understanding on his face – thinks she sees a moment of hurt, but it is gone just as quickly, and then, he smiles that bright strange-but-familiar smile at her. '_I would do even this – I would help you pretend I am another for your happiness; that is how much we love you,_' that smile seems to say, and it cracks something inside her.

"Rukia," he whispers, and suddenly she wants to be sick.

"Don't say anything," she snarls; clenches her eyes shut, because she cannot bear the dark shade of his hair. She would have liked to pretend she did not feel the hot tears burning at her cheeks, but then he is kissing them away, and she cannot deny them.

"Your wish," he whispers, and bites back all but his pleasured groans for the remainder of their time together. Something shifts in him then, and she knows he understands, because he is a bit rougher – a bit more uncouth. He treats her like a girl rather than a goddess, and he allows himself to fumble a little as if he is a boy instead of a perfectly devoted beast.

Perhaps it hinders his enjoyment of the carnal acts that come after, and again after that, and later still.

Rukia cannot bring herself to care.

--

--

If he thinks it odd when she grabs his arm and orders (_begs?_) him not to go afterward, he certainly says nothing. Instead, he only sees that she has snapped back to herself, and now she is looking at _him_ and not through him; she is not pretending, and that (however little) is enough for him.

It is almost enough to break her heart.

He has no need of sleep, but he approximates it well enough with closed eyes and steadied breath and quiet meditation. There's something both comforting and discomfiting in the sudden normalcy between them. In the recesses of her stormy mind, she imagines that they are living a normal life. That she is a living girl, and he a normal boy, and that they are lying on her bed after a long day at high school, or after a particularly grueling training session at the Academy, the biggest worry on their minds being her overprotective brother coming across them, or his overzealous father bursting through the door.

She imagines that his hair is orange, and her eyes are violet, and that she smiles and he frowns instead of the opposite.

If he feels her eyes roving over him, feels the way her entire body trembles with trepidation and excitement and horror, not one of his perfect muscles flinches to indicate it.

If he feels his strength waning, subtly, slowly, like so many grains of perfect white sand through that emptying hourglass… it is only subconsciously. Of that, she makes certain.

She trails a cold finger along his bare chest and muses. "I wonder if we shall go to heaven or hell?" As soon as the words slip from her mouth, she regrets. She realizes that they might have been too much; she was giving herself away, and desperately, she wishes to retract the words, less he discover and find some way to thwart her plans –

But he trusts her more than he trusts the sun to rise in the east each morning, and he does not tense nor pause. He speaks with honesty (_too much, far too much_), and, she hates to admit, love. (_She hates to think that she feels sorry for _him _to be tethered to her, rather than the other way around._)

"We are already in heaven," he says, and the 'we' refers to him and the thousand souls embedded within him, not specifically her. This is not her heaven; this, he knows. It pains him sometimes to realize it, she thinks.

"Then to hell, I suppose," she murmurs, and wonders if it is delight that thrills up her spine at the thought. (_Hell. Surely, in the fires of hell, her sins could be burned away… surely, the suffering would allow her to transcend this delectable sin…_)

He is quiet for awhile before he replies, "So long as we are together, I cannot imagine the difference."

Her heart twists, and her cold fingers dig into his arm.

If he feels their power draining together, spiraling in an elegant crash course like all things that got too close to the sun did, then he had somehow managed to lie to himself and make it not real again. Nothing would spoil this, their brief and imperfect interlude. They deserved this, before that terrible finale. Maybe he felt it approaching, too, if only subconsciously.

"We _will_ be together," she replies heatedly, and it is not a lie. Sometimes, she might like to pretend – but she does not believe in her piper's dreams (_lies_). Rukia is nothing if not logical, and though in her fantasies she imagines him as another, in the end she always opens her eyes and comes back to him.

This is the first time she has fully confirmed this as something between her and him, and not a pale-shade imitation of something between her and another.

He smiles, and his eyes are warm and soft for her (_only her_) as he touches her face, traces the delicate line of her cheekbone – presses his touch hard across her jaw, her chin… her lips.

"Promise?" And his eyes are not those of a hollow – not even those of a man, but now of a boy, full of naivety and devotion, and she almost regrets what is to come (_almost, almost_).

She laves her tongue over his finger, twisting around it before sloppily covering it with her mouth. She bobs eagerly over it, watching with relief as those boys eyes turned back to a man's, and glinted with sinful excitement and anticipation. She lavishes her ministration over another finger before pulling him from her mouth, pressing his wetted fingers to smear the saliva back over his mouth's previous path over her face.

"We will be together," she promises, and images of what is to come flash ominously behind her eyes. Were she a creature with even a bit of good left, she should have felt guilt at the way he contentedly accepted her promises, leaning forward and trailing sloppy, eager, wet kisses down her face – the way his reverent bites marked at her shoulders, then her breasts, and then lower, even as she imagined their pending doom.

"We will be together," she breaths, again and again, and those words are his pleasure, even as he returns it tenfold with eager hands and mouth, made skilled by practice and desire. And even as she arches and cries and peaks, the images of their spectacular end play like a movie over and over again in her mind.

And Rukia laughs. "_Together, together, together…_" It is a promise.

They are one now, after all, and interludes could only last but a moment in time.

--

--

She imagines Byakuya, Renji, Ichigo and the others have realized she has been missing for quite some time by now. But she is nothing if not skilled, and even as her power waxes and wanes and slips through her fingers like so much sand, her iron control remains the same. While she and he-who-is-not-Kaien lie together and watch the sky (_even when they rock together and watch each other instead_), she crafts the shields around them in so many perfectly woven, carefully tucked strands. For all intents and purposes, they have disappeared from all worlds – and soon, so soon, they _would_…

If he wonders why she is so adamant that no one find them, he does not ask. It is simply enough for him that they are together. And for her, it is simply enough to know that it was all about to come to an end.

It was six weeks after Yamamoto's warning that they come for her. The leaves, just beginning to turn the faint yellows and oranges and reds of early autmn, stir and rustle and whistle to announce God's soldiers arrival.

The curtains were drawn, and she could not have set a better backdrop had she tried. The interlude was complete, the finale was beginning at long last, and Rukia couldn't help but to wonder at what a beautiful day it was to die.

--

--

**Author's Notes:** And the stage is set.

Thanks, as per usual, to Kilonji, my awesome-awesome beta who has kept me going on this one. Go check out denebtenoh's picture dedicated to this story (link in my profile), and also Concerto in G Minor by Atramentous Love (in my favorite stories), which she so graciously dedicated to me citing inspiration from this story. I could not be more honored.

And lastly, thank you all so much for all of the wonderful feedback. I hope you enjoy the finale.


	8. To End

**In which all things must come to an end.**

_Warning: Violence._

--

--

A beautiful fluctuation of a strangely resonant reiatsu, and now they are simply _here_.

Their masks are not the organic, twisted visages like the Hollows' matted, bone-like ones. These masks are black and sleek and shiny, perfect and symmetrical, accented with openings that reveal eyes and mouths and glimpses of cheeks and chins. Their faces scream self-confidence beneath.

'_Even God's soldiers hide their faces from the world?_' She is oddly disappointed. Distantly, she recalls a time when she was proud and powerful and was able to show her face to the world when she fought for what she believed. Are Shinigami the only ones who do not feel the need to hide?

She stands and Kaien stands behind her. From the corner of her eye, she sees his face falter – sees him look from them to her and back again, confused, though the beginnings of betrayal had not yet begun to twinge within him. Suddenly, weeks of hiding in the real world start to blossom into dark and terrible sense. (_Why the real world, when both Soul Society and Heuco Mundo were her domains? He must have imagined her sentimental. Only now must he realize how silly it was to paint her as something so soft, something so human._). Suddenly, the dozens of gentle commands for him to _stay_ morphed into something other than longing for his presence. (_To weaken him the same as her – to cripple them in slow, deaf dumb and blind bliss._)

She reasons the beginnings of understanding are planted in him now, and wonders sadly if he is pained by her betrayal. (_It isn't a betrayal though; not really. She did not lie to him. They would be together._)

She half expects him to be angry with her, but then he moves forward as if to step between them and her, and she thinks she is actually thankful to have at least a small time left of his devotion. She wanted _their_ judgment, not his. She edges him out before he can shield her, and bares her chest bravely to God's soldiers, refusing to back down. She meets their eyes, one at a time, and waits for this, the ultimate vindication, to fall.

The silence is unbearable.

"You said you were God's sword," one finally drawls in a voice that is neither man nor woman, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she wonders whether these creatures know everything – saw everything –

Something inside her quivers, falters. '_They know my sin._' She smiles, tears stinging in her eyes. '_If they know my sin… then they know what must be done._'

"But Swords are clean and pure and empty of these impurities, Rukia." It does not surprise her that they know her name; the syllables are the least of what they know. They know her story; they know her fall – they know her sin.

It relieves her.

"He loves all his creatures, even the strayed ones, Rukia. The choice is yours. We can collar you – limit your powers, and allow you to stay as you are – or we can burn away everything you are – reforge you truly as God's sword."

'_Burn away everything I am…_'

"Can you separate me from my sin?" she whispers, hoarsely, but the wording already lends the response. She doesn't deserve to be saved anyway, but she imagines the instinct to live is ingrained too deep to not at least _ask_.

"No." There is neither apology nor hesitance in the reply. The creature (_God's soldier, God's sword, God's archangel?_) peers at her, and she wonders – if there was not a mask hiding its face, would see indifference or pity there? "They are too intertwined. Both would need to be destroyed."

'_Me _and_ my sin._' The wracking of her chest was half sob, half laughter, and entirely mad. Of course she had known all along. Perhaps she had even hoped.

"What will it be, Rukia?" In the distance, she is aware of the flickering of reiatsu. The opening of Heaven's Gate is too large a surge of energy to go unnoticed, and others are coming. She feels them, and she imagines God's soldiers do as well – there is little time.

She shakes so hard that her ribs hurt, and she hiccups and chokes and moans. It's all so goddamn funny. "Do you even need to ask?" she gasps, throwing out her arms, spinning, laughing, screaming, crying. "_Burn me away!_"

(_Burn me away, burn me away, burn my tallow and my ashes – burn my heart and my mind and my soul until not even my sin remains!_)

One of God's soldiers moves, but Rukia has made a mistake in taking her attention from Kaien – when the angel lunges for her, he leaps between – grabs her by the face, far more roughly than he has ever touched her before – and when he slants his face over hers, locking their lips together, for the first time ever, it is _he_ who controls their passing between her inner world and the outer one.

--

--

"These days together – the gentleness in your eyes, your promises – they were all deception, weren't they?"

When he looks into her eyes, it is an unspoken truth between them:

He could break her.

They are intertwined – and that was why this power was never meant to be. She had willingly accepted his sin along with his power, while he had gradually suckled away at the remains of her humanity. He is a part of her, even as she is of him. She knows it – knows it as resoundingly and as solidly as she knows her own name, and yet desperately, she seeks now to right the world.

"I did not deceive you," she whispers, and her voice sounds hoarse even to her own ears. "I promised we would be together."

(_You are evil, the same as me. Paint the world in black and white for me – make everything alright again. Lie, lie, lie to me – make me believe the world is right again._)

She did not want to feel guilty for this. She needed to know she was doing what was right, and so, she reiterated, slowly, carefully, willing him to understand (_and herself to believe_). "We cannot be saved, Kaien-dono. So together… together, we will end this." Inside, she begs him to understand.

He smiles.

"I am not Kaien-dono. I am not Miyako-dono. I have no heart or soul, and not even their stolen faces can mask that eternal shame." The words come so easily – too easily – spoken with all the dispassion of a child's recital of poetry.

He smiles, but there is sadness in his words, and she is suddenly aware that his lies to her are not in the cursed time they have spent together these last months, but _now_. There is no accusation in his gaze – but nor is there a sense of camaraderie or understanding.

Only gentle adoration and a distant sadness.

"No…" she moans, pressing a hand to her churning gut.

(_Lie to me, but make me believe… We are damned._) But how could _he_ be, with eyes so soft and gentle?

"We are killing you, from the inside out," he says, but there is nothing snide or leering or triumphant in it. It is simply a statement of a fact.

Slowly, he draws his sword. His face is wavering, at first flickering to show a glimpse of Miyako-dono's gently amused eyes, then back to Kaien's – then to another that she does not recognize, and another, and soon, it is hard to focus on him – hard to interpret that carefully neutral face.

(_Neutral, because certainly that isn't sadness flickering across so many different features – across the faces of so many others that he had absorbed before._)

When his features finally settle, she feels a lurch of sickness in her gut as she finds herself staring… at herself.

"You have been absorbing me… this whole time?" Her stomach lurches, but with excitement. It would be a truly reproachable act. It would show him to be as twisted dark as her – she is giddy and the whirling sensation nearly makes her sick. This was what she wanted… this was what she needed…

He does not share her mirth. "To save those you love, you would die… but more, you would rot into something unrecognizable, forevermore. You would give your _soul_. You are truly a spectacular creature, Rukia-sama."

There is something unspoken, there – something regretful, something sincere, and she hates it. She chokes on his truth (_their truth – her truth – the only truth_). She becomes firm, demanding an answer – demanding him to show himself to be beyond redemption. "This whole time… have you been meaning to absorb my soul this whole time?" (_You were betraying even me. You are a monster – show me you are a monster, so I might drag you to hell with me and smile for having done it._)

There is sadness in the eyes staring back at her, though his mouth (_her mouth – it wore her face, yet why could she only see it as Kaien?_) curves into a smile, and she cannot for the life of her imagine why the curve of lips is the saddest thing she has ever known in this world. "_You_ have been absorbing _me_, Rukia-sama."

And she knows it is true. (_For your power. For your love. I need you to be dirty, I need you to be beneath me. I am reproachable, but I need you to be worse. I need _you) She had been descending this entire time, but to have him and hold him beside her – to drag him down with her – it had made it feel a little less like falling, made her feel a little less alone. She had thought she was suffering him, that he was the disease ravaging them, but now, she realizes, the opposite was true all along.

She wants to be sick.

"You have a heart. You have a soul. And if I must cut them out to save them from this rot, then I will do so." His eyes are bright with something she does not want to believe are tears. "That is how much we love you. We would lose you, to save you."

"I cannot be saved," she whispers hoarsely, and believes it. "_We_ cannot be saved." And perhaps she believes that a little less.

"You can be," he repeats, soothing even as he draws his (_her_) sword. When Rukia looks around, for the first time in her life since she has come to know her inner world, she realizes that Shirayuki is nowhere to be found – not even the shadow of her idles at her side. Instead, her sheath rests snugly in _his_ obi, and her perfect white hilt is held tightly in _his_ hand, and absently, Rukia thinks, it wouldn't be right for her to hold such a pristine sword anyway.

"Shirayuki," she whispers brokenly, stretching out a hand uselessly as if she might beckon her soul's other half back. She couldn't, of course. It was too late. Too late, too late, too late, always too late and too far gone – it was the story of her life, and now, it would be the story of her eternity.

Now, she finally realizes what it is to be truly, irrevocably alone.

She chokes on her grief; sinking to her knees and wishing for nothingness to take her and make it its own. "I do not want to be saved."

He whispers again. "You will be."

--

--

For a flicker of a moment, she sees through her eyes in the real world. God's soldier's sword protrudes through his chest – he had taken the blow meant for her. And he is smiling.

Rukia closes her eyes again.

--

--

In her inner world, she doesn't realize how close he has come until his arms wrap around her and his lips brush the cool tears from her face. He is warm. "Please don't cry for us, Rukia-chan. How could we die, when we were never truly alive?" he mumbles against her cheekbone. He is Kaien-dono again, and his lips are curved into a gentle smile. "We only lived through you; so long as you are alive –"

"I promised you we would be together," she moans. It pains her to think of anything else.

"I thought that was what I wanted," he replies, and the smile that fills her entire vision is not Kaien's at all, but entirely his own. Why had it taken her until now to realize that?

He leans back from her – holds her at arm's length as he cocks his head to survey her. Blood dribbles from his chin, and his eyes tilt in gentle amusement as his calloused thumb rubs away another tear she doesn't remember shedding.

"But this way makes me much happier."

The skin of his hand on her face grows hot – far too hot – and he abruptly steps away from her, fading not into snow that she could control and call back, but into beautiful, elegant white ash.

When he is almost gone she desperately rakes her fingers through the air, grabbing desperately though the fine dust sifts easily through her fingers. She screams until her voice is hoarse. "No! No, don't leave me –!"

The last of him is his smile, and she imagines she will never, ever be able to forget. With his words alone, she imagines, he could kill her.

And she expects he will. She expects words of eternal devotion (_that he cannot really offer, as he fades away to nothing_); she expects words of love (_that he will no longer be able to give, as he burns from her soul_); she expects a killing blow, as her true loss is finally realized.

Instead he whispers, one last time. "Live." And then he is gone.

--

--

… from her.

When she opens her eyes, already aching painfully with the tears she wants so badly to shed, she thinks for a moment she might be mad as his back appears before her, cutting off the archangel from her. There is no sword in his chest, no blood staining his shinigami robes.

His arms are spread wide, and God's soldier falters in his second killing blow, shocked by the sudden appearance of a creature already killed once.

Distantly, a memory of Kurosaki Masaki's specter appearing from the energy of her dying thoughts and feelings flickers through her mind. Rukia moans low in her belly from the ache as she realizes he was not real. She can see through his flickering spectral visage, already fading fast.

"Save her," he says, simply, and then he is gone. For one final, real, irrevocable time, he is _gone_.

_Forever._

"Noooo…" she howls, pain redoubling as slowly – hesitantly – God's soldier relaxes his pose – lets his sword drop to his side as he falters.

The reiatsu is close now – far too close – and it is almost too late.

"Noooo…" her hands clench hard into the rocky ground; her nails crack and her fingers bleed. "Do it," she begs, but God's soldier remains frozen, uncertain – torn by the repentance of a creature he had clearly not expected it from. "Do it!" she hisses, and when still he hesitates, she knows there is only one way.

She draws her sword, lest they feel hesitance; turns wild white, empty irises to them. "End me, or rest assured, I will end you all!"

Shirayuki's hilt is unbelievably cold – far colder than she has ever been before. There is no feeling to her. She is empty; this is a white katana the size and shape of Shirayuki, but Shirayuki is not here. But she draws as smooth and perfect as butter nonetheless, and in her first swing the cold white bitter blade sinks a deep arc through the archangel's chest.

He bleeds and Rukia is bitterly disappointed. Cannot even these, God's chosen soldiers themselves, overcome her?

While still they hesitate she moves again and this time, it is his head that hits the ground. The sleek black mask bounces one way and the head in another, and it is a man's face – he has blonde hair and jovial green eyes, now empty in death, and she hates the way that she could so easily kill even these, the supposed elite over all.

"_END ME!_" she screams, and then, to assure her handicap – to assist in their victory, she viciously turns the blade that is not Shirayuki on herself, plunging the freezing tip into her stomach, withdraws, and plunges again, and again, and again, until she wears scarlet instead of her misleading white.

Had it been truly her zanpaktou, she would not have been able to injure herself upon it. She chokes on her sobs, regretting only that she will have no time to properly mourn Shirayuki – properly apologize for what had already been done, and what was yet to be. "_END ME, END ME, END ME!_"

But then the reiatsu surges down upon them, and even as the first of God's soldiers now finally moves forward, she realizes it is too late.

--

--

When they arrive at the scene in a flurry of running and panting and huffing and shouting, Orihime suddenly realizes that in all her rushing to get here, she has absolutely no idea what she was supposed to do now that she was.

Kurosaki-kun's sword reverberates in a shocking clang, and his entire body seems to vibrate as he slams full force into the black-masked man standing before Rukia. The man does not fight back and instead flies back defensively. Like a flock of crows the rest of their haphazard would-be rescue-party descend behind Kurosaki-kun, forming a protective ring around Kuichiki-san.

Abarai-kun, Kuichiki-sama, Ishida-kun – even Tatsuki-chan is here, though she stays closer to Orihime than to the men, who are all bristling with so much killing intent. Though her mind seems to be working in slow motion, Orihime slowly begins to realize that though a man is dead, his chest deeply gouged and his head swiped clean from his body, none of _their_ swords are bloodied.

For a moment, Kuichiki-san just stands there, swaying on her feet, making small whimpering sounds in her throat. Orihime is almost afraid to look – and when she finally does, it is as if the weight of her gaze alone is the final straw.

Kuichiki-san crumbles into a boneless heap to the ground and the crimson of her blood is as undeniable as it is shocking, staining Shirayuki and gushing in torrents down the front of her white kimono.

She should not have been able to turn her own zanpaktou upon herself. It is something that even Orihime knows is simply not possible – and though she only just barely understands that, the shinigami seem profoundly affected. It's as if they were defeated before the fight had even begun. In so many ways, she realizes, they had arrived far, far too late.

"Rukia!" Abarai-kun looks stricken – he sways between standing beside his captain to ward off the strangely-complacent enemy, and rushing to his fallen friend's side. For the first time since Orihime had first seen him, Kuichiki-sama looks utterly at a loss.

Ironically, it is when they all are frozen by indecision that she moves, scurrying behind them and rushing to Kuichiki-san's side in an instant. Healing. This is something she knows – _this _is something she can do. These strange soldiers and this uncertain battle she can do nothing for, but _this_ – _this_ she can.

On instinct, Orihime reaches for the fallen shinigami, but the moment her hand draws close to the wound she feels a distinct, heavy _push_ as otherworldly energies swirl and bar her from it. Tears sting at her eyes as she breathes, "Kuichiki-san…"

"There is nothing that can be done," one of _them_ finally interrupt, as if sensing her confusion. "This is… a mercy." The voice sounds feminine, but it is hard to tell, echoing and far away as it is. But even so, Orihime is certain she hears regret within it. "Let her end."

"Orihime," Tatsuki-chan whispers, reaching, and her hand is the only thing warm in the world – touching her shoulder, steadying her, even as she wavers. Her throat is tight and her cheeks are wet and Kuichiki-san's breaths are wheezing and coming in short, staccato bursts; her eyes are focused somewhere far away.

Finally, Ichigo breaks.

"Inoue – please! Do something – do anything – just please, Inoue –"

Had she a more spiteful soul, she might have felt a rush of pleasure at the way the tables have turned. Once, Inoue had whiled away the days, useless and alone in her prison-sanctuary in Heuco Mundo. The situation had only emphasized her helplessness – brought her eternal damsel condition into the forefront of her consciousness, where it would settle as uneasily as a rock in the pit of her stomach.

It had always been Kurosaki-kun. Or Ishida-kun, or Abarai-kun, or Kuichiki-sama. Or even Tatsuki-chan. It had been everyone except for her.

"Inoue – stay back." "Inoue-san, please get to safety."

_Inoue, you're useless…_

It should have been satisfying to hear _him_, the strongest of them all, beg _her_, poor, simple, foolish Inoue, to do something (_anything, anything_). It should be a milestone for her – an achievement in her own right.

It isn't.

And no matter how many tears she cries, they just can't seem to wash away the sea of red.

--

--

One of God's soldiers probably started to walk forward then – or perhaps Kurosaki-kun, so pent up in his own swirl of emotions, simply overreacted to some minor motion. Either way, the world erupts suddenly into a cacophony of sound, and a fierce battle begins around them.

Orihime's world, however, is but a tiny shell in the universe and she barely even sees the steel and the sparks whirling in desperate struggle around her. Instead, all she sees are the dark fluttering lashes of her dear friend as her eyes roll and she seems to become aware of her presence for the first time.

"Inoue..." She gasps for breath. "Please leave, Inoue –"

Orihime smiles sadly at the struggling girl, feeling a strange sense of sereneness wash over her. With something almost akin to regret, she shakes her head.

"_Protect him," Kuchiki-san ordered, and did not even wait for a reply. So great was her trust in Orihime – even greater than Orihime's trust in herself. Hadn't it been proven only moments before once and for all? Protecting – truly protecting, at the expense of another's life – was an order she would always be innately incapable of._

Though Orihime certainly felt sad… she did not waiver. "You told me to protect him, Kuichiki-san."

When she raises her hands before her, she notes absently that they are already trembling with exertion and fear. She does not know how things will turn out – but she knows that anything has to be preferable to this.

"Please let me do this for him, Kuichiki-san." When she shakes her head, her tears sparkle like so many prisms falling in the air between them. They caress Rukia's cheek, mingling with the tears already lingering there. "Please let me do this for _all of us,_" she corrects herself softly, and when Rukia notices Orihime moving closer, she stiffens.

Orihime feels that raw rug of energy again – the push and pull of swirling reiatsu attempting to turn her away. But when the golden glow reflects off Rukia's face and eyes, and Orihime could almost swear she glimpses a hint of violet flickering again, somewhere in the other girl's too-wide eyes.

Slowly, Rukia shakes her head again. "No, Inoue."

--

--

Rukia does not fear for a moment that Inoue won't back off. And so, when she told her no, she almost relaxed the pressure of her defensive reiatsu. It was all about to end. Inoue might not understand, but she would respect her wishes; it was the nature of her gentle heart.

But then, Rukia realizes that Inoue is not backing away, and her hands are still held stiffly before her, fingers and thumbs taut in the shape of her triangle – doe-brown eyes glinting with a hint of backbone that Rukia would never have expected.

It is only now that Rukia has the sense of mind to fear.

Inoue smiles and the gentle curve of lips was painful to bear; it echoes the expression of a dark haired man who had faded from existence such a short time ago. "I'm sorry Kuichiki-san. We can't let you go without a fight," she explains, as if in apology. Then, she tightens her fingers. "I reject."

Who knew that gentle Inoue's power would be the most ravaging of them all?

Rukia throws back her head and screams.

--

--

Not even Orihime, with her godly ability to pick and choose events and history – with the ability to redefine time and space through rejection– not even Orihime can save her.

Something shifts, off-balance, and teeters precariously beyond the point of no return. She is trying to remove the 'infection', perhaps, not realizing that Rukia_ is_ the infection. It catches and lights like so much dry tinder laid out beneath a thoughtlessly abandoned match. It was too late to stop it the moment it started.

Orihime seems to realize it too, at the last second, and she frantically starts to backpedal – trying to reel back her power, trying to stop the avalanche she has called, but Rukia desperately pulls it back, catalyzing the path of destruction.

She thinks she hears the girl screaming for her to stop. "Kuichiki-san – Kuichiki-san stop – it's going to carry you away!"

It is bright and burning, and though Rukia feels that it should hurt, it strangely doesn't. Instead, all she feels is a sensation of cleansing. But it is working, nonetheless; and so, she can accept the painless numbing – the slow, final fading.

"I can't – stop – it –" Rukia only regrets making Orihime cry; she prays weakly that the girl will not carry this guilt with her.

"Thank you, Inoue," Rukia whispers, loving and thankful and above all else, relieved when she feels the dirtiness fade away, just before she does. For one bright, perfect moment in time – she is clean again.

And then it all ends.

--

--

When Kuchiki-san stilled, the sound of the Shinigamis' zanpaktos' clashing viciously against the swords of God's soldiers resounded ridiculously loudly around her. And the sounds were so much more empty and meaningless, now that the source behind the clash was – was –

Orihime cried, and when she threw her hands out, her power manifested in a way it never had before, and the glow was large and encompassing and covered the entire area. The fighters were compelled into stillness, and into the sudden awkward silence, she screamed.

"_It's too late!_" She was weeping and trembling and completely broken. "_It's too late, it's too late – I couldn't – I couldn't… I failed! Kuichiki-san's gone, it's too late!_"

And it was so still, and she could not bring herself to look at Kurosaki-kun's face, or Abarai-kun's face, or even Kuichiki-sama's face, because she could not bear to see the grief and disappointment and emptiness that would be lingering there. All because of her. All because she was too weak.

Orihime had failed. Kuichiki-san had saved her life, once, at the cost of her own. And in return, Orihime had failed her in the worst kind of way. She had killed her. With her own two hands.

She moaned, and pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes, and bit her lips hard, but nothing would stop the stinging burn of salt in her eyes. "I failed… I failed… I failed…"

They were transfixed. Frozen, torn between grief and fury and confusion. No one heeded God's soldiers as two of them hauled up the body and head of their felled comrade. No one felt threatened when a third slowly approached Orihime, still cradling Kuichiki-san in her lap and arms, rocking her cold body. And why should they feel threatened? The battle was already lost, and God's soldiers had not come here for _them_. Their target lying limp and pale and bloody and safely _dead_ in Orihime's lap.

Orihime looked up only when she felt someone near her – too near – and she flinched back, defensively cradling the body she held as if it wasn't already dead – as if she meant to protect Kuichiki-san even after she had killed her.

There was a strange gleam of curiosity and wonder in the eyes of God's soldier, barely visible beneath that onyx mask, as he peered down at them. "You did not fail," he (_she – it?_) said, and the voice reverberated as if echoing up from a well.

He crouched before her, and though her initial instinct was to flinch away, she found she could not. She was transfixed, watching him as he watched Kuichiki-san. His hand glowed and pulsed as he reached forward, and very, very gently, touched Kuichiki-san's forehead.

There was no way to be sure, but for a moment, he looked as if he faltered. "You did not fail," he repeated, more firmly this time, and then he rose and turned back to his people. "We are done here," he said, and just like that, they were gone, leaving the assortment of shinigami and human's to watch numbly in their wake.

And then Orihime felt a strange flutter in her arms, and a cool breath stirred at her ginger locks, and her tears and sobs and cries came anew.

--

--

_For thee I rose, now descend all alone._

--

--

**The End**

**--**

**--**

**Author's Notes: **To epilogue or not to epilogue?

Thanks for coming along for the ride. Please drop me a line if you enjoyed; drop me a few if you didn't, too – I'd greatly appreciate the feedback. (Plus, I really, really want a story to get near 100 reviews over its lifetime puppy eyes). Standard huge thanks to Kilonji, my beta, and to denebtenoh, who has artwork dedicated to this story on DeviantArt.

The separated italics (lyrics) have been from Angellore by Tristania.

(Come on, you know you want an epilogue… review and threaten me. Make me a happy panda!)


	9. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

**In which beginnings and endings intertwine.**

--

--

… _And then Orihime felt a strange flutter in her arms, and a cool breath stirred at her ginger locks, and her tears and sobs and cries came anew…_

--

--

Every time they ran into each other, it was the same.

Today, it was in the real world. He was just leaving to go to the store to pick up some milk and bread for Yuzu when he passed her on the street. For half a second, he thought of pretending not to see her, if only to avoid the awkward routine, but he dismissed the thought just as quickly.

Even if Tatsuki couldn't beat him to a pulp for shunning her like that, he knew Inoue didn't deserve it. Ichigo knew he should be thanking her more wholeheartedly, but somehow, he just didn't have the energy these days. He was _tired_, and he just didn't have the faith anymore to produce the constant reassurance she needed.

He might have felt guilty for running into her (it probably ruined her day every time they did), but she hadn't even looked particularly happy before she caught sight of him. He paused in his journey, sighing deeply and stuffing his hands deeper into his pockets as she faltered in her own journey. Her hands were stiff at her sides as she bowed at the waist. He tried to head her off, but just like always, she was a little quicker. "I'm sorry, Kurosaki-kun – I'm so sorry –"

"It wasn't your fault, Inoue," Ichigo sighed, watching his words puff into white clouds before his face instead of watching her. "You did more than all of us could have done. You did more than even _God's soldiers_ could do. You saved her."

'_In a way_,' he thought, but didn't say. He may as well have. The words were thick in the air between them. They both knew.

But he didn't have anything better to say – how could he comfort her when he had no comfort for himself? – and she probably knew that. And, just like the mothering soul she was, somehow _she _couldn't bear to leave _him _thinking he had come up short (_again_). Just like always, Inoue smiled brightly as his words. Tried to let him believe he had made a difference.

"Aa – aa – I suppose Kurosaki-kun is right –" He noticed the way the smile never quite reached her eyes. It never seemed to, these days. But at least she smiled.

It was a start.

"Yeah," Ichigo muttered, the words muffled into the scarf around his neck. Maybe next time they would meet at the entrance to the Kuichiki-estate. By then, he promised, he would have that tightness in his throat under control. By then, he promised, he would have thought of something more comforting to say.

But maybe – just maybe – by then, he wouldn't even need to think of anything. Maybe time would have healed more than their empty motions of 'continuing life' and 'dragging on hope' could alone, and maybe things would change enough that empty words of solace wouldn't be needed.

But he doubted it.

A snowflake fluttered between them, and as he watched it hit the sidewalk and melt, he thought he might cry.

He turned abruptly and continued on his way before the glittering in his eyes could give him away, turning stiffly to walk around her while carefully avoiding her eyes. "I'm sorry," she called again behind him, forlorn, troubled, helpless.

Ichigo pretended he didn't hear.

--

--

Sometimes, she sat and simply stared blankly out the window for hours. The plumb blossoms were just beginning to bud on the trees, and the irony of it was not lost upon Kuichiki Byakuya.

Perhaps, in another time, he might not even have noticed the difference. She had always been quiet and reserved and withdrawn and uncertain of herself in this place; how was this any different? It was a perceptible change… but only just barely.

Maybe the most painful was the realization that the distinct difference… laid in the fact that she did not remember that this place was supposed to set her so much on skittish edge.

"Green leaf tea?" a servant asked, and she only nodded politely, taking the cup and warming her hands upon it as she continued to stare out the window. Gone, was the stammering uncertainty that came from believing she was beneath even _serving_ tea in such a household, much less accepting it.

Byakuya thought he would have been more pleased to see it. Under any other circumstances, he imagined he would be.

She watched the blossoms with some imperceptible mix of emotions. As if they might hold the answers she was looking for. When he had asked her last night at dinner if she cared for them, she had offhandedly said that they were pretty, but she preferred winter.

He thought it a promising response.

Byakuya was determined to do things better this time. He was nothing if not methodically and doggedly set in his quest for perfection, and this time around would be just that. When she had first looked at him blankly, and asked politely who he was, he had not hesitated to take her by the shoulders and embrace her.

"Your brother," he had replied, and if she noticed that the embrace was stiff, and that clearly he was unaccustomed to such a display of affection, then she certainly said nothing. "I'm proud of you; I love you more than anything," he had finished clumsily – the words were thick and awkward, his mouth as unaccustomed to forming them as his arms were to forming hugs.

But these things were coming a little easier each day.

--

--

Abarai had just entered the manor. He knew, because he felt the familiar controlled-chaos of his subordinate's reiatsu.

At first, Byakuya had strongly disapproved of the way Abarai came and talked so animatedly about their past together, splashing colorful language and stories together in a way that could only be seen as unbearably vulgar in this, such a prim household. Byakuya had tensed the first time he used an _unsavory word_, but then had to hold himself back and remind himself that Rukia was not a child, and to try and shelter her from mere _words_ was utterly ridiculous.

His brash lieutenant shared stories as earnestly as if he thought that if could only tell them insistently enough, he might bring them back in her mind – ignite them back to life, reanimate them. And once again, Byakuya had tensed, and held himself back.

Byakuya didn't want her to remember. He didn't want that awkwardness to return; he didn't want to remember his failure. It was a clean slate given to them, and at first, he resented Abarai for trying to sully it.

But then he saw the way she laughed with him, and he caught glimpse of the wistful expression in her eyes, and he realized, she _wanted_ to remember.

And Byakuya could deny her nothing. So quietly, he turned from the room and departed even as Abarai entered, and left them alone to pursue that easy reminiscing that could only exist between two old friends. It didn't matter if she did remember, he reasoned; things would never go back to the way they were. That, he would make certain of.

The only way to move was forward.

--

--

"Renji… The other one… Ichigo." To hear her pronounce his name so carefully, as if the owner of the name was some stranger and she still felt awkward addressing him so informally… it hurt him. Yes, it _hurt_ Renji, but, he imagined, it probably _killed_ Ichigo.

Smothering these thoughts behind a cocky smirk and a raised tattooed-eyebrow, Renji prompted, "Yeah, what about that idiot?"

She looked confused for a moment, and it was strange that such a subtle flicker on her face could knock the air from his lungs. Sometimes he forgot that she wasn't used to his good-natured ribbing. She almost looked hurt on the absent not-quite-friend's behalf.

"He's not really an idiot," Renji added quickly. "We just joke like that sometimes – remember?" And he winced again at his choice of words. Of course she didn't remember. God, _he_ was the idiot, and an insensitive, unforgivable one at that.

"Aa, yes, I remember you telling me that, Renji. I'm sorry. I forgot for a moment," she apologized, and the demure words hurt far more than her usual cuff to the head ever had.

"Don't be sorry," Renji murmured. Then, too eager to change the subject, he forced the smile back on his face prompted again. "What about Ichigo?"

Back on track, a bit of excitement flickered in her eyes, and she leaned forward from her position on the sill. "Was his hair ever black?" she asked, with the eager, child-like anticipation that could only come from someone who was certain they had found an answer to something.

Renji stilled; something dropped out from inside him, and his smile faltered. In his minds eye, another man's smiling face flickered, and then, another who wore the same but was not him. "No, Rukia. No; Ichigo's hair was never black."

Rukia frowned, as if that confused her. "Oh." The disappointment in her voice hurt him, and he almost wished he had lied.

"Why do you ask?" he prompted, carefully, oh so very carefully – though in reality, he already knew the answer. '_Why do you feel the need to call that… thing… to practice with?_' he had asked, and he said 'thing' only because he refused to call it by the form it wore. He would not call it Kaien because it was not, and she needed to understand that.

He understood, later. So belated, too belated, but he _understood_ the pained longing in her eyes, the secret way she coveted and went back to him every time. He understood it, because he felt much the same ties to _her_. He suspected what had gone on, though he had never spoken a word to Kuichiki-taicho or Ichigo about it.

When she had awoken, he had known before all the rest what had happened. He knew she remembered nothing even before she opened her mouth and confirmed it, because if she had remembered, that dark, all-encompassing _longing_ would still have been in her eyes.

She no longer had to bear those sins – and the only one left to bear the knowledge of them was him. But he would do that, gladly – keep that knowledge tucked safely away so that he could protect her from it, forever.

'_Was his hair ever black?_' she asked, and his world dropped out from around him, and for one panicked moment, he thought everything would come back to her in a rush, and that she would be ruined again, this time with no way to bring her back.

But the moment passed, and she smiled (albeit sadly), and shook her head. "Because… I thought I was remembering something."

"Aa."

"But it must just be my imagination," she continued brightly, and did not notice that it was only now that Renji dared take in a shuddering breath. "Ne, Renji?"

"Aa," he replied, and forced himself to return her bright smile. "Something like that." And when he reached forward to take her hand, he took comfort in the face that it was warm again.

--

--

Sometimes, when Orihime visited, she would still try and use her powers to see if she might 'fix' what she had 'broken'. And Rukia would brighten and cheer, "Sugoi, Orihime! That's so sugoi!" every time.

Orihime. Not Inoue-san. Orihime. It was what Orihime had always wanted, she reasoned, but in the back of her mind she wondered if perhaps it was a bit much, for Kuichiki-san (Rukia-chan, she corrected herself stoutly in the back of her mind) to use such familiarity with the one who had, essentially, caused all this.

But then she would see the bright cheerfulness in Rukia-chan's violet (_purple - not white – but beautiful, iridescent, sparkling purple_) eyes, and she saw the way the other girl was no longer in the drawn-out agony she had seemed to be in for months before it all happened, and Orihime reasoned that perhaps it wasn't so bad after all. Perhaps she didn't need to punish herself anymore. It hadn't been a win, per se – but it was far from a loss, and she had honestly tried her best.

Maybe – just _maybe_ – she reasoned – things were looking up.

And so, Orihime would smile, and pat Rukia-chan's hand when the ultimate failure of her rejection technique was revealed each time (_she could not, it would seem, reject the event of her own rejection; she could not undo what she had done_), and she would brightly tell Rukia-chan of a time that _she_ had called _her _sugoi.

And Rukia-chan would smile and laugh and listen intently to the stories, and later, when there were no more real stories to tell, to the imaginary robot-adventures Orihime was always crafting, and then later still to the recipes Orihime was always developing so dedicatedly. Though, oddly enough, after the first time Orihime brought a dish along to share with the other girl, Rukia-chan seemed to pay less attention to the ingredients themselves than to Orihime's animated way of describing them.

And, later yet, when Tatsuki-chan started coming along for the visits, Rukia-chan would concentrate hard when she showed her how to make a fist, or how to kick. And when they had exhausted themselves, Orihime would offer to go to the Kuichiki-kitchens to prepare them something to eat, and both Tatsuki-chan and Rukia-chan (and even some of the servants within earshot) would eagerly explain that the kitchen-staff was more than happy to do it for them. And so, Orhime would sit between the two dark-haired girls (her _two dark haired girls_), and clutching their hands to her chest, she began to think that no, maybe this wasn't so bad after all.

--

--

Minus the screaming and shouting and insults, Ichigo realized that he wasn't entirely certain how to act around her anymore. She seemed to take his visits quite seriously, and would sit cross legged with her hands on her knees and quite an intent look on her face, as if she meant to memorize every second of their encounters.

Once, she would have lackadaisically ignored him, chattering on in that 'better-than-thou' tone, tossing around the term 'idiot' to emphasize that she knew more. She would have talked over him, even, when he did choose to speak, though he would have simply raised his voice, and then she hers, until the shouting match was recommenced and until the veins in his head felt ripe to explode.

He would have never guessed he would miss it, now, when she latched on to his every word so very carefully, listening to him speak as if the each word was some careful edict.

That consideration made it so much harder to speak, he realized. Before, he was goaded into speaking recklessly. Now, he choked on the words because none seemed adequate enough in the face of her rapt attention. And so, often, like today, they sat across from each other in awkward silence.

"You know," he began, and cleared his voice when it cracked embarrassingly. She leaned forward; he averted his gaze. "Before… by now… we would have been yelling at each other and arguing."

She nodded sagely. "Renji has told me as much," she replied, and Ichigo felt stung. Did Renji find it so much easier, that he had exhausted his own special memories with her and moved on to Ichigo's?

"Aa," he replied, because he couldn't think of anything better to say.

"Renji says that you are someone very special to me," she continued, almost dictating. And then, just as matter-of-factly, she asked, "Did I love you?" Though the question was innocent enough, the past tense furrowed deep in his chest, and he tried not to cry.

"We gave up everything for each other," he replied, honestly. "I would still give up everything for you." He said the second as an afterthought – a quiet whisper. He felt so tired.

She was quiet for a long time after that, and each second was like another stab in his gut. The rejection was tangible, and Ichigo thought he might be sick. But then –

"Then I will love you again," she announced suddenly, and there was something about the doggedly stubborn naivety in her voice that shone with the Rukia of another time. "Memories or not."

He looked at her, startled, and the curve of her lips seemed a bit condescending. "It's the only logical choice, isn't it?" There was something about her tone – an unspoken '_idiot_' trailed at the end of the sentence. For a moment, he was able to pretend that nothing had happened.

That everything was the same.

Ichigo nearly wept in relief.

But then her face shifted into one of gentle concern, and her voice softened into something dull and foreign and confused. "Did I say something wrong?" she asked, genuinely upset. "I mean – if you don't want –"

Ichigo shook his head vigorously – and though he didn't remember moving, suddenly his arms were around her, and she stiffened, but only a little bit, and only for a moment. "No. No, no, no – I do. I do want to! It's just - it was – perfect," he replied. "You said it… perfect."

Her hair smelled like rain, and perhaps a bit like lavender – which was what she had always smelled like before, he realized.

She looked wary for a moment, but then slowly, she smiled. And Ichigo knew, it might be a long and hard journey – but by whatever powers that be, she _would_ love him again, and things _would_ be ok again.

_Someday…_

And even if her memories never did come back – even if they were starting everything over fresh right now, and even if they spent the rest of their lives (_and their afterlives_) just trying to restore what they had before – Ichigo realized that he was _ok_ with that. It was the journey, not the destination, that counted. And now that he knew he was not making this journey alone... he actually found that he was almost (_kind of, sort of_) looking forward to it.

A few moments passed, and then, awkwardly, she spoke into his chest. "Um – Ichigo – this is nice, but could you please –" She trailed off awkwardly, and Ichigo almost laughed.

"Only if you don't say please," he goaded, and when she smacked him in the chest on impulse, he _did _laugh (_really, truly, honestly laughed_) for the first time in months.

--

--

"There's something I think you would have wanted to see," Ichigo started – then paused, and rephrased. "There's something I think you want to see."

She understood the reason for his phrasing (it was not _would have wanted _– she was not dead – and though she might not remember everything, she was still Rukia, and hadn't she proved only just a short time ago that she wanted to be something the same – desire and enjoy the same things?), and so she only smiled brightly – and when she slipped her hand into his, he actually smiled back. She thought it odd when she looked at him that it seemed that a scowl would be more at home on his face than a smile, when she had seen so very little of either of those expressions in these months when he had come to visit and simply looked so melancholy.

And though she forced bright cheery smiles with all of them – and sometimes, didn't even need to force those smiles – often she thought that it was only with this Ichigo (this man-boy-child who meant so much to her, they all told her in so many different words, in so many different stories) that she was able to recognize what she truly felt. She knew when the others were forcing their cheer on her behalf, and she felt obligated to share the facade, for niceties sake. But with Ichigo – with Ichigo, it was never fake, and it was always so painfully, beautifully, spectacularly real. She didn't need to pretend, and sometimes – just every once in a while – it was nice to sit quietly and mourn with him.

Today was different, though. The period of mourning was now over, and the veil had been pushed back. Today was the start of something new, and for that, she found it easy to continue to smile, and found it comforting when he did as well as they padded quietly through the Kuichiki-manor.

"It's so pretty," she said, the first time she saw the beautiful, elegant white katana. She almost expected its owner to step forward and usher her away when she reached to touch it, but Ichigo was oddly quiet and nothing stirred when she ran her finger along its cold, pristine surface.

She felt oddly disappointed – she didn't know she had been expecting something until the disenchantment fluttered inside her, and she frowned when nothing happened.

She noted the way it was hung on the wall, reverent in its placement, clearly cleaned and cared for – but not lovingly. Not the way it deserved. It was alone; it was abandoned. Its owner was gone, she realized, and so this beautiful white katana has been left to decay and tarnish from lack of love even in an abundance of cursory care.

Something ached inside her, and she thought she might cry. "It's so empty," she whispered. There's something achingly piteous about the abandoned katana, and she didn't know why that made her feel so utterly lost.

His hand tightened around hers, and when she turned to regard him she noted that his shoulders were tense. "It isn't empty," he replied, words soft but insistent – eyes caring but glinting with hidden steel. She had no idea why he sounded so doggedly insistent, but somehow, she knew better than to argue.

She turned her gaze back to the blade, and slowly, returned her finger to its edge; her caress strangely loving. "But you are, aren't you?" she whispered again, lower this time, the words not meant for him, and wondered if she might not be a little crazy, to talk to an abandoned and forgotten sword as if it were a person.

"… Shirayuki?"

She doesn't know where the name comes from, but it is somehow fitting, and Ichigo's grip was suddenly almost painful on her own, though he made no motion to pull her back. It's a good sign, she thinks, so she decided then and there that that will be what she calls this perfect, lonely, empty, forgotten sword.

She thinks she sees herself in it, and so, she conspired quietly with the white katana. "You will be mine, and I will be yours. Perhaps we will be less empty together, Shirayuki?"

She imagines a woman smiling, and thinks she feels a warm hand in her own. '_Together._' (_At long last._)

She wants to say, '_I missed you, too_,' and doesn't exactly know why.

The strange man they called 'Urahara' and the gentle-mannered woman named 'Unohana' had both been hesitant and reluctant to give their diagnoses. Her memories, they said, might come back over a manner of days, months, years, or decades. Or, they might never come back at all. There was something to despair, in a life not even knowing who you are (_were, are going to be_).

And yet, when she stroked the blade – when she slid it into its perfect, pristine sheath and found it fit snugly in her obi sash, it was as if it (_she – can a sword have a sex?_) had belonged there all along.

Perhaps they could be more than simply 'less empty'. Perhaps… perhaps they could become something more.

(_For half a second, she felt a disorienting sense of remembrance – something sick and twisting inside her stomach, a deep pain, and a reverberating promise – but it was only for half a second, and with a quick shake of her head it was easily dismissed and forgotten._)

Suddenly, a lifetime of rediscovering who and what she was didn't seem like such a bad thing. Her life didn't feel as much like an ending as it did a beginning. She smiled when she twisted the blade in her hand. She fit there. They _belonged_.

"Ne, Shirayuki?" she asked, and wondered if it was odd, that she was certain she heard a reply.

--

--

_Now, we head towards the battlefield_

_Believe, and our blades will not break_

_Believe, and our hearts will not bend_

_Though the roads we take may be different, our iron hearts will beat as one_

_Swear, that even if the earth is torn asunder, we will live and return here once again!_

_-Renji to the rescue party, before storming Heuco Mundo_

--

--

_The Beginning_

--

--

_Fin_

--

--

**Author's Notes:** Thank you, thank you, thank you. It was wonderful while it lasted, ne?


End file.
